


hard times create strong men

by lostnfound14



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: 1930s, Alternate Universe - Noir, F/M, Period-Typical Racism, Spider-Man Noir - Freeform, honestly idk if yall are gonna like this fic but i hope you do, mentions and depictions of racism typical to the 1930s so be warned, this is my take on spider-man noir, with MCU depictions of characters in mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-09-23 02:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20332204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostnfound14/pseuds/lostnfound14
Summary: Set in the universe of Spider-Man Noir (1930s/Great Depression). Michelle Jones is a young adult struggling to take care of her sick mother in New York City, where crime runs rampant. One night, she is saved from danger by a mysterious vigilante who asks that she call him the Spider-Man. The next day she meets a man named Peter Parker, who asks if she needs help carrying the groceries that are threatening to spill out of her arms at any moment, so she takes him up on his offer, not knowing what might come of it. Michelle is caught in a web of confusing discoveries as she spends more time with both sides of the same coin.NOW COMPLETE!





	1. trapped

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, God. This is probably the most ambitious story I have ever written, and I know there's a 50-50 chance you'll either love it or find it mind-numbingly boring. I just have some pretty strong insecurities about putting my writing on public forums. Sorry for ranting. That being said, please enjoy the chapter and leave kudos if you enjoyed, and a comment with any words you might wish to say, be them compliments or opinions on my writing! ENJOY!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just as the man reached his hand out to grab her, Michelle heard a voice behind her that caused the man to freeze. “That’s not very gentlemanly of you, fella,” it called out. Michelle whipped around just in time to see a black blur fly through her field of vision and land behind her. She turned back around fast enough to give herself slight whiplash.
> 
> The black figure was standing behind the group of men, and she craned her neck over them to see, sniffling. It was a man, wearing a black mask and goggles. Could it be…? Everyone stood silently for a moment, staring each other down, until one of the goons piped up, “Who the hell are you?”
> 
> “I’m your worst nightmare,” the man responded.

A good right hook could knock you out. Brass knuckles could send you to the hospital. Revolvers could kill you. But nothing hit harder than the Depression. People starved and would kill each other over a loaf of bread, with knives, guns, and sometimes bare fists. Michelle Jones would cover her ears when she walked past the newsies who shouted about the ever-increasing crime and deaths, who had been forced to start selling their papers for no more than a cent, something that few could spare in order to save up for any kind of food they could get their hands on.

The horrors of the 1930s didn’t escape her when she entered her apartment, either: The one-room flat she shared with her bedridden mother did nothing but drive it home for her, literally and figuratively. The walls were peeling, ceiling dripping, and the telltale smell of sulfur sat in the sink that wouldn’t drain.

Every day when Michelle came home from the streets, waiting in line to pick up whatever food she could, she would open the door to her smiling mother with a book in hand, always happy to see her. Michelle would place a kiss on her forehead and lay out all the food she had collected on the table. She would sit on the edge of her mother’s bed and read to her as she munched on a slice of bread with butter on it, since that was really all she could get nowadays.

Most people were certain that the Depression would never end. Michelle prided herself on her steely resolve, but even she was beginning to feel a nagging doubt in her stomach - it was either that or her constant hunger. They pretty much meant the same thing to her: Times were bad.

Being half-black didn’t exactly help her situation either. Every day, without fail, there would be a random group of shmucks that would harass her, calling her some unpleasant names and make generalizations about her race, but at the same time catcalling. Michelle supposed she was attractive, not that she cared, but “compliments” directed towards her would frequently concern her slender face - most women had one due to malnutrition - with defined cheekbones, piercing eyes, and lush lips, which according to the assholes, would look great wrapped around a certain appendage.

Those comments were the ones that would make Michelle observe her reflection in the cracked body-length mirror which leaned against the wall next to her bed and cry as she wondered why the world was so hateful. Her mother would watch in despair as tears flowed silently down Michelle’s cheeks and ask what was getting her down, but Michelle could never bring herself to tell her the truth.

Nothing really gave Michelle hope anymore. For all she knew, the world would hate black people until the end of time, and there was nothing that could be done about it. One day, though, as she stood in line to collect her daily rations of bread, butter, and beer (the three B’s, Michelle liked to call them), the latter of which she only drank out of necessity since the water could kill, she overheard a man talking to his family about something that caught her interest.

“One of my boys says he almost got shanked last night for his shoes,” the man began, looking at what Michelle presumed was his wife, holding a young boy in his arms. “But at the last second he says he saw some shmuck jump off of the _wall_ and knock the guy out cold, Mary, can you believe that?” After Mary shook her head no, he continued. “The guy threw him against the wall and punched his lights out. The craziest part,” he added, leaning in a little bit and lowering his voice, “was that he was wearing some kinda mask and goggles and a black ensemble. Before my boy could even say thank you, he bounded back onto the wall and _climbed it with his bare hands.” _

A man who could stick to walls and possessed superhuman strength? Michelle almost laughed it off. People were coming up with crazier and crazier stories every day, probably as a result of their hunger playing tricks on them. A vigilante? Very possible. A vigilante who could do the things that man described? Get outta here. And yet, despite all of her instinctual rejections of the idea, Michelle found herself hoping it was true. Every hope of hers had been crushed as the Depression began and persisted, and this was something she believed could mean something different for the city, not something that could feed every hungry mouth or give people money to make their lives better, but could show the wannabe mob bosses of New York that taking over wasn’t gonna be as easy as they thought. As Michelle collected her rations, she found herself smiling cheek to cheek.

Michelle’s discovery lifted her spirits for the rest of the day. She dropped off the food at her mother’s bedside with the same smile on her face, prompting a question from the woman, to which she replied, “It’s difficult to explain,” saying nothing else. Thankfully, her mother didn’t persist, and let her leave the apartment once more.

In the late hours of the night, she walked out of one of the local theatres after sneaking into a picture show with her friend, Betty, and said her farewells with a smile and a kiss to her cheek, promising to catch her tomorrow. “Why don’t we go to one of them clubs?” Betty asked, cheeks flushed from the cold October air, rubbing her dainty hands together through her gloves for warmth. “I heard about this one joint, they call it the Cotton Club. Cindy told me all about it, said they had some splendid music and the guys could really dance.”

Michelle smiled. “Sounds wonderful,” she replied. “I gotta get going, though. My momma’s gonna be wondering what I’m doing out so late.” Betty nodded in understanding, giving Michelle’s hand a squeeze.

“See you tomorrow, sweetie,” she said, and Michelle smiled back. Finally, they parted ways, walking in opposite directions towards their respective homes. Betty was a real diamond, Michelle thought. Most white girls would look at her with those emotions she had come to pick up easily on their faces - pity and poorly masked discomfort - because of what their daddies had told them about “the blacks” when they were children, but Betty ignored the jerks who would ask her “what she was doing with one of ‘those people,’” knowing that they were ignorant, always placing a comforting hand on Michelle’s arm when she felt her tense up at their words.

“Hey, girlie!” A voice cut into her thoughts abrasively as she walked down the street, forcing her to whip her head towards the speaker. Yet another shmuck, surrounded by a few of his goons. They snickered as they saw her turn to look at them, but Michelle just as quickly turned back and continued walking. “Hey, girlie, I’m talking to you!” The man said again. Michelle forced herself not to say anything. As annoying as they could get, she couldn’t give them an edge by responding, no matter what she said. She kept her head down, walking silently, paying them no mind, until at the edge of her vision she saw several pairs of boots. Finally, Michelle looked up, and saw the same group of thugs standing in front of her.

“I see you standing there with your head high, girlie. Acting like you’re better’n us and all that jazz.” Okay, now Michelle was a little scared. Never had she been cornered like this by a group of men, but based on stories she had been told, there was always one thing men always wanted from women on the street, and it wasn’t their purse. This was the last thing she had wanted to happen to her, and she had done a pretty good job of avoiding it so far, but tonight she was not so lucky. Michelle took a shaky step back, cursing herself for her trembling hands and quivering lip. “Aw, look at her, she’s scared!” Joked the main goon, making his friends laugh sinisterly.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Michelle squeaked. She couldn’t think of much else to say that would get them to back off, and even this wasn’t nearly enough. She knew that she was defenseless, something she hated, but these men had caught her off guard, and they could take advantage of her in an instant. But right now, it seemed that they only wanted to scare her to the point of shell-shock, and Michelle knew they knew it was working.

The leader took a step towards her, and Michelle stumbled over something as she backed away. “Please,” she whimpered. A tear threatened to spill from her eye. _Oh, God._

Just as the man reached his hand out to grab her, Michelle heard a voice behind her that caused the man to freeze. “That’s not very gentlemanly of you, fella,” it called out. Michelle whipped around just in time to see a black blur fly through her field of vision and land behind her. She turned back around fast enough to give herself slight whiplash.

The black figure was standing behind the group of men, and she craned her neck over them to see, sniffling. It was a man, wearing a black mask and goggles. _Could it be…?_ Everyone stood silently for a moment, staring each other down, until one of the goons piped up, “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m your worst nightmare,” the man responded.

The same thug had the nerve to laugh. “Listen, asshole,” he began. “If you’re planning on beating us, you should learn how to count, ‘cause, y’see, there’s five of us,” he gestured to himself and his friends, “and one of you.”

“You’ll come to find that numbers don’t matter as much as you think,” the man said ominously. Still, the goons chuckled. They rolled the sleeves of their overcoats up their arms, preparing for the inevitable fight. Michelle couldn’t find it in herself to run, or even look away. She knew now that this was definitely the vigilante that man in the rations line had talked about before. He wore the exact outfit the man had described. Michelle had yet to see if he could stick to walls, but the superhuman strength was about to be put on display, she supposed.

“Remember, Joe, you wanted this,” one of them said, before charging him.

The man in black easily ducked the telegraphed haymaker and gave his attacker a left hook into his ribs, causing the man to cry out in pain and fall to the ground. Watching how easily the man had fallen, the rest recoiled, but ultimately charged him anyway, all but the leader. He watched in amazement in front of her, and Michelle took a step away from him while his attention was on the fight. The man continued to mow them down with a flurry of kicks and punches, and the sickening cracks coupled with the pained grunts she heard when he connected made Michelle squeeze her eyes shut, if only for a moment.

After what seemed like seconds, the man in black was surrounded by a circle of men in varying states of consciousness, all clutching their wounded faces or ribs and moaning in pain. Michelle finally got a good look at him: He wore a fedora over a black leather mask on his head, one that a pilot would wear in their aeroplane, and white, wide-eyed aviator’s goggles to match. He wore a button-down vest under a black trench coat that stretched to his ankles, dark work pants, and combat boots. He stood, his shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths, looking off to the side.

Suddenly, Michelle was reminded that there was one man still standing, as he grabbed her roughly and pulled her flush against him, wrapping one arm around her waist and his other hand at her neck. She could feel the cold of a blade against her jugular. Her breath caught as she felt the blade push against her neck, and then she began to hyperventilate. This man was going to kill her. She watched the man in black start as she was held by the thug, but then he pointed the knife at him to keep him away. “Not another step! Get any closer and I’ll slit her goddamn throat.”

The man in black stood still, raising his hands up in surrender. Tears were now flowing freely down Michelle’s cheeks, and she sobbed, unable to keep them in. She thought she was going to die, and drawing it out like this was not doing anything good for her nerves that were already being stretched thin.

“Help me, sir,” she sobbed. “Please.”

The man brought the knife back to her throat, shouting into her ear, “Shut up, bitch!” Her ears rang as he yelled, and she shut her eyes closed, fearful for her life. She opened them again to see the man in black standing still, hands still raised, and he looked as if he was pondering what he could do. To Michelle, it seemed like her fate was sealed: she would die at the blade of some random thug as the man in black watched helplessly. She didn’t like this ending, but there wasn’t much she could do to change it, now, was there?

The man in black finally spoke. “Hey, buddy, easy now. Let her go, all right? If you let her go, I’ll let you go, how’s that sound?” He seemed to be negotiating, with Michelle as a bargaining chip. She was too distressed to feel insulted.

“You’re full of shit,” the thug spat. A little saliva landed on her outer ear. Michelle wanted to gag. She felt the blade press a bit harder on her neck. Any more and she would be dead. This was it. This was really it.

“This could have gone way better for you, pal,” the man in black responded. Just like that, he quickly flicked one of his raised hands in the direction of the thug, and a peculiar stringy fluid shot out of his wrist. It stuck to a place behind her, which Michelle guessed was the thug’s face. The masked man pulled his arm back so that the thug stumbled forward, and lost his grip on Michelle. She took a deep breath in, clutching her neck, and her knees buckled. Michelle checked for any cuts or blood, but thankfully, there was nothing. She looked back at the two men.

The man in black had pulled the thug towards him and thrown a brutal right hook to his jaw, dropping him instantly. Michelle was still sat on the grimy sidewalk, unable to lift herself up from the ground, looking up at the man who had just saved her life.

She felt some fear of him, but a different kind than when the men had cornered her on the street - this was the fear of the unknown. They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, and then the man took two long strides towards her and grabbed her by the arms, lifting her up. Suddenly, Michelle embraced him tightly, not knowing what else to do. The man seemed a bit tense, but after a few seconds, he loosened up and placed a comforting hand on her back.

“You’re safe now, miss,” he whispered reassuringly into Michelle’s hair as she continued to cry. “Those men aren’t gonna hurt you anymore.”

Michelle buried her face into his shoulder for a moment, letting the sobs rack her body for one last moment, and then finally picked her head up, hands still loosely gripping his jacket. She looked him in the eyes, and the shakiness of her voice remained as she said, “Thank you, sir. Thank you, thank you, thank you…” Michelle imagined that under the mask, he was smiling at her reassuringly, which helped her calm herself down enough to let go of him. With her hands that were now free, she wiped the tears from her eyes furiously and sniffled a bit more.

“Thank you,” she said one last time. Then the man turned, presumably to go find the next person to help, and at that moment Michelle felt that she had to say something, anything, to keep him on this sidewalk with her for even a moment longer. The man in black primed to jump, and just as he was coiled to fly into the air, Michelle shouted:

“Wait!” And the man froze, turning back to Michelle. With his eyes on her, she felt a bit nervous, like she was being observed under a magnifying glass, and she might as well have been with those monstrously-sized goggles he was wearing. “Who are you, really?” As she asked it, Michelle felt a little silly, because there were a hundred other questions on her mind and she had gone with the simplest one.

She imagined him smirking beneath the mask as he responded, “Call me the Spider-Man, darling.” Michelle found herself blushing at the name.

“Well, Mister ‘Spider-Man,’” Michelle said quietly, trying out the name on her lips, “you saved me from something awful tonight. I don’t know how to thank you enough.” She looked down at her feet, her nerves returning quickly. Michelle didn’t know where she was going with this.

The “Spider-Man” adopted a more serious tone. “I want you to spread the word that I exist. Let the papers know, let the city know that I’m here. And that I’m going to be here for a long time.” Chills were sent down Michelle’s spine at that last sentence. Her hopes had been confirmed - this man was going to help.

“I hope to see you again, Spider-Man,” Michelle said truthfully, not adding a sarcastic lilt to her voice as she said his name a second time. “You could be real good for this dump.” She wished she could see his face, any proof that he was emoting under that mask in some way, because looking at a blank mask and goggles wasn’t doing much for her confidence in speaking to him.

“Like I said, darling - ” there he went again, making her feel like something special when she was just a girl - “I’m going to be here for a long time, so don’t you worry ‘bout a thing.” Michelle couldn’t help but smile at his cheesy statement, simultaneously feeling the meaning behind it. On the surface, his words were a quick comfort, something that would make people feel better in the moment, but to Michelle, they were something longer-lasting, and if it meant she wouldn’t have to feel the fear she had at the mercy of those thugs, she would take it instead of leaving it.

With that, he tipped his hat to her (Michelle was just now realizing that this guy was a bit off the cob), and just as the man had described, he jumped, propelling himself off the ground with the ladder of a fire escape, and ran up the wall as if he was on flat ground. Michelle watched in awe as he went, wondering if her eyes deceived her, but even as she pinched herself he continued to climb up, up, and away.

“You really are something, Spider-Man.”


	2. taboo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’s your name?” He asked, and when she turned to him she saw him still looking straight ahead. She turned back to look ahead, too.
> 
> “What’s it to you?” Michelle shot back, a little coldly. The second she said the words, she wanted to bite them back. She was being unnecessarily rude, and the man had been nothing but cordial to her. She could practically feel the pained expression on his face that she saw out of her peripheral. “Michelle,” she said, after shaking her head at her own behavior. 
> 
> “That’s a nice name,” Michelle heard him say. “I’m Peter. Peter Parker. I’d shake your hand if we weren’t both carrying a dozen pounds of food each.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the not-so-long-awaited second chapter! I wish I could update in consecutive days, but I like to write at least a chapter ahead before I post the next one. That being said, the third chapter may take a bit longer to post, since I have yet to start writing the fourth. Anyway, like I said, the plot thickens considerably in this chapter, so enjoy! Leave a comment sharing an opinion or observation if you so desire! Kudos too :)

True to her word, the very next day, Michelle went to the offices of the newspaper closest to her apartment - The Daily Bugle, it was called - and told them all about the wonder that was Spider-Man. At first, nobody believed Michelle, but when they heard her describe her encounter with him in such great detail, down to every single part of his outfit, they brought this to the attention of the editor-in-chief, who they said was named J. Jonah Jameson. Everybody seemed to be scared of him, it appeared, and Michelle couldn’t deny that he was a bit intimidating, but Mama didn’t raise no pushover, so she matched his intense gaze as she told her story again, and when she mentioned his flying in from thin air, he had leaned in with interest. 

“You mean to tell me that this man materialized out of nowhere and started mowing through these goons like they were putty?” Jameson had asked incredulously. 

“I don’t know what to tell you, mister - one second he wasn’t there, and then he was. What’s important here,” Michelle continued, turning her glare up to eleven to emphasize her point, “is that he saved my life.” Defensively, Jameson put his hands up and assured her that he didn’t deny that part.

“Gotta say, miss, this is a real doozy. Front-page worthy, even. God, imagine what we could pull in with a story like this...” Jameson mused, his eyes fogging over with the image of a great sum of money rolling in from their next publication. Michelle didn’t blame him. Everybody had gotten greedy as a result of the Depression. “In the meantime,” Jameson said, returning to reality, “did he give you a name? Anything to declare?” 

Michelle smiled, a twinkle in her eye as she recalled what the vigilante had told her to relay to the world. “He called himself the Spider-Man,” she said. “And he told me that he was going to be here for a long time.” 

Michelle couldn’t help herself - she told everybody she could about the man who had saved her life that night: Betty, her mother, even Mr. Delmar who owned the delicatessen down the street. All had responded with a degree of interest, but Delmar was the most enthusiastic by far. When she told him about the masked man, he asked so many questions that Michelle was out of breath after responding to all of them. 

“You’re sure you’re not crazy, that you actually saw him run up that wall?” He asked at one point, making Michelle sigh in exasperation. She had told Delmar this several times, and yet he still didn’t believe her. Realistically, who would, though? It all sounded like one big hallucination, but Michelle knew in her heart of hearts that what she had seen was the real thing.

“Mr. Delmar, I didn’t want to believe it either, but I wasn’t dreaming. What he did was no magic trick or nothing. He stuck to the wall like glue.” With that, Delmar relented, and let Michelle take a few vegetables to bring home for her mother. They had a deal going: As long as Michelle delivered food for Delmar and collected the money for it, she could take home some of her own food free of charge. It was pretty lucrative, especially today, in the economic wasteland that was the States.

After dropping back by her apartment for the food and saying a quick hello and goodbye to her mother, she returned to the deli to get her next delivery. Delmar told her the address and warned that it was going to be a long walk. Michelle had nodded in understanding, taking the paper bags of food in both of her arms. They were a bit heavy for her skinny self, but she knew she could probably handle it if she distracted herself with her thoughts. 

All Michelle seemed to be able to think about was the Spider-Man. She had lost sleep since she’d met him, the image of his mask burned into her eyelids and the warmth of his embrace still enveloping her body. This made her feel odd on the inside - it wasn’t her business getting all hot and bothered over a man whose face she had never seen, and only met once. Michelle still shifted uncomfortably in her bed as she tried to sleep until she had no choice but to pass out from extreme exhaustion. However, those good thoughts only occupied her half the time. The other half was when she remembered the feeling of the man’s knife against her throat and the sinking feeling in her stomach that she was going to die.

Michelle had told no lies to the Spider-Man. Yes, she thought he was going to be a big help. Yes, she was extremely thankful for his interference. And yes, she wanted to see him again. She didn’t know how he had interpreted that last one, and in all honesty, neither did Michelle, but it seemed like the right thing to say at the moment, the statement that would best convey what was going through her head. 

She suddenly heard a voice beside her. “Miss?” it asked, and she nearly jumped. The last thing she wanted to deal with was more goons with knives. She timidly turned to her left, where the voice had come from, and saw a single man, leaning against the brick wall of a tenement and smoking a cigarette. As she looked at him, he took a drag and blew the smoke out of his mouth, proceeding to hold the cigarette loosely at his side.

The first thing she noticed about him - he was attractive. His hair was combed back smoothly, his eyes, though gentle as he looked at her, hid an intense resting gaze, and his jawline, like most, was clearly defined. All of these features combined gave him quite the rugged look. “Yes?” Michelle replied, hoping that he wouldn’t be causing any trouble. She prayed, even.

“I don’t mean to impose,” the man continued, “but you look like you’re having a bit of trouble with them bags.” He gestured to her occupied hands. “I was wondering if you may like some help.” Michelle couldn’t help but roll her eyes. That was one reason why she didn’t like to trust men - they were always looking for some way into her life, acting all nice until they got bored of her and broke her heart. Michelle shook the thoughts out of her head, berating herself for imagining such a thing with a man she had only just met on the street.

“Well, aren’t you some gentleman,” Michelle muttered, slightly irritated. She shifted the bags in her hands, starting to feel a bit of soreness in her arms. Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to let him help. As she thought this, one of the bags began to tip over, and she tried her best to readjust it, but it started to fall nonetheless. In a moment of panic, Michelle felt her heart rise into her throat, not knowing what to do. In a flash, the man was standing in front of her, catching the bag just before it would have spilled all of its contents. They were standing directly in front of each other, close enough that she could hear the man’s breath. He had a familiar musk, Michelle thought, almost like - 

No. That’s gotta be the most outlandish, unsupported conclusion she’d ever come up with. Once again, Michelle ignored the thoughts, instead focusing on the man’s proximity to her. She watched him readjust the bag so that it stood straight in her arms, hands lingering for a moment near her chest, then he quickly pulled them away so that they rested at his sides. He had ashed the cigarette, she noticed - it lay flattened on the sidewalk next to his feet. Michelle felt her pulse quickening, hating herself for being nervous, but admittedly, this man was pretty good-looking, a guy she would have dated back when she was still a naïve young woman. Who was she kidding, Michelle was still naïve, just… well, broken a bit.

Too many odd thoughts were circling through her mind as this man still stood close to her with his manly smell, mixed with the telltale odor of cigarette smoke, so she took a cautionary step back. “I suppose I could use a hand,” Michelle conceded, “but don’t go expecting something from me in return.” She cocked an eyebrow at him to show him she was serious. As she said this, the man looked confused, as if she were talking nonsense. In place of saying anything, he simply reached his arms out, waiting for her to drop the bag into his hand. She leaned a bit forward, indicating for him to grab it, and he did, taking a step backward, not even shifting his arms to adjust to the weight.

That was the second thing she noticed. He had some noticeable muscles for someone who had been living in a time where most starved. Her first conclusion was that he was one of those rich brats, who still had it good and was fed well, while the rest of the people struggled to feed themselves day in, day out. Then she thought, what the heck’s he doing in a dump of a neighborhood like this? 

Michelle decided to table this inner discussion in order to focus on carrying her now solitary bag of food. She had to admit that carrying her load was far more manageable now. She began to walk in silence with the man at her side. The man made no attempts to talk, which she appreciated, until a few minutes later, when he broke the silence between them with a question.

“What’s your name?” He asked, and when she turned to him she saw him still looking straight ahead. She turned back to look ahead, too.

“What’s it to you?” Michelle shot back, a little coldly. The second she said the words, she wanted to bite them back. She was being unnecessarily rude, and the man had been nothing but cordial to her. She could practically feel the pained expression on his face that she saw out of her peripheral. “Michelle,” she said, after shaking her head at her own behavior. 

“That’s a nice name,” Michelle heard him say. “I’m Peter. Peter Parker. I’d shake your hand if we weren’t both carrying a dozen pounds of food each.” Michelle chuckled despite herself, and she turned to see him smiling, as if proud.

“Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Parker,” Michelle said, smiling faintly. He looked at her and frowned.

“Peter, please. You’re referring to the old man.” To her surprise, he spared one of his hands of the package and scratched the back of his neck. Noticing her eyes on him, he quickly dropped his hand and placed it under the bag again. How peculiar.

“All right, Peter it is, then.” Michelle turned back again, and they went silent for the second time, but it was a comfortable silence, instead choosing to listen to the bustling city around them, the newsies hawking their papers, the beggars that had become more and more common lately asking for spare change, and the working men, walking quickly to get to whatever job they had that would keep the family afloat.

Suddenly, she heard one of the newsies yell, “Reports of a mysterious vigilante on the streets who saved a woman from mugging! Read all about it!” Michelle perked up at that. Had Jameson already released a paper about her story? The more surprising part was that she noticed Peter tense up beside her as they walked past the newsie. Michelle’s step faltered, and the young boy took notice of this, sticking a copy in her face. The headline read: “**‘Spider-Man’ Saves Damsel From Certain Death.” **Michelle scoffed at their use of the word “damsel” to refer to herself, but she had certainly felt like one. 

The boy put the newspaper back in its stack and asked aggressively, “What’ll it be, lady?” Michelle smiled shyly and took a step away from the loud kid.

“I’ll come back later to pick it up, how about that?” And with that, she turned away and caught up with Peter, who had been watching her with curiosity. When she caught him staring, he looked down at his feet, a little red flowing to his cheeks. Michelle cocked an eyebrow as she joined him and matched his pace. 

As they walked, the crowds began to thicken, forcing the pair to push closer to each other. Michelle felt heat rising to her face as she brushed against Peter’s arm, feeling the taut muscles underneath his button-down. She had to tell herself to calm down and stop acting like a silly little schoolgirl, but it only partially worked. Several times, one of them would get jostled around and Peter, no matter whether he was the one getting pushed, would place a gentle hand on Michelle’s shoulder to balance her or himself. She couldn’t tell whether or not he was doing it on purpose, but either way, she wouldn’t have minded.

Finally, Michelle saw the number of the building that Delmar had told her, and she said while changing direction quickly, “This is it.” Peter followed behind her by a step, so close that he almost bowled her over when they reached the door. Michelle whipped around on her heels and gave him a confused look, to which he mumbled an apology and maneuvered around her to push open the door. She watched the way the muscles in his forearms tended as he twisted the knob. Lordy, this boy was fit.

He held the door open for her, and before she passed him she curtsied, mocking his manners and joking, “Who am I, the Queen of England?” He laughed, and the instant Michelle heard it she decided it was a pleasant sound, one that made her heart skip a beat. Focus, Michelle.

Lost in her reverie, Michelle forgot she was staring at Peter, and he graciously interrupted her by saying her name quietly and gently: “Michelle?” Her face burned hot fire and she forced herself to turn away and climb the stairs to the apartment. She heard his footsteps behind her and, attempting to regain some of her mojo, she asked nonchalantly, “Enjoying the view down there, Mr. Parker?”

She imagined him blushing as he stammered out, “W-what are you talking about?” When Michelle reached the top of the stairs, she twirled around to face him, breaking out into a grin as she observed his beet-red face. He looked even more darling when he was flustered. “I’m messing with you, kid,” Michelle reassured, and he smiled. When he, too, reached the top of the stairs, they stood looking at each other, and for the first time, Michelle noticed she was a bit taller than him. Maybe she’d only known tall fellas, because she couldn’t recall a single man she knew that was shorter than her. 

“Michelle,” Peter said again. God damn it, she was staring again. “We gotta get to the door.” She stepped back so that she was flush with the wall, gesturing for him to go ahead, and when Peter flashed Michelle a smile with his surprisingly clean teeth she felt her legs turn to jelly for an instant, but thankfully she was leaning against the wall for support. She followed him to the door, where he waited expectantly for her to knock, so she did.

She gave the door three quick raps and called, “Delivery for Parsons!” Michelle and Peter glanced at each other quickly as they waited for the door to open. She heard some footsteps approaching the door and it swung open slowly, revealing a man with a very noticeable beer gut and a bottle of the stuff in his hand, swaying slightly as he eyed the odd pair.

“I didn’t know they gave delivery boys assistants now,” the man joked while he chose to focus solely on Peter. It fell on deaf ears, and any hint of mirth Michelle showed on her face was now gone. She looked at Peter, who was frowning slightly at the man.

Just as quickly, his frown disappeared and he responded pleasantly, “Oh, no, sir. Y’see, Michelle here handled the delivery. If anything, I’m the assistant.” It was the drunkard’s turn to frown, almost in disgust, it seemed. He eyed the bags that Peter and Michelle held in their hands, still refusing to look her in the eye.

“Well, I won’t take food handled by no Negro,” he spat. Michelle’s gaze fell to her feet, deeply embarrassed. She wanted badly to say something in her own defense, but he would either ignore her or call her another awful name. “She probably put her filthy hands all over it.” At that, Michelle tensed, her fists clenching around her bag. She forced herself to look up, at Peter, who was turning red in the face, and his own muscles were tensed. His frown returned to his face as he thought of what to respond.

This time, he was far less polite. “Sir, she’n I walked damn near a couple’a miles to get this food to your door. And now you’re gonna turn us down on account of a black girl carrying one of the bags?” Both Michelle and the beer-handling shmuck looked at him with shocked expressions. “The way I see it,” Peter continued, “You got two options: one, take the food and have a nice dinner, or two, starve your wife and kids just to prove how much of a goddamned bigot you are.” 

Parsons was silent, floundering, completely lost for words. A corner of Peter’s mouth quirked up victoriously as he said, “That’s what I thought.” Peter shoved his bag into Parsons’s hands roughly, and he stumbled back from Peter’s force. Peter lifted the other bag from Michelle’s hands, which immediately went limp at her sides as she watched him set it on the floor in front of the man. He shut the door in Parsons’s face and turned to Michelle. 

She had no idea what to say, embarrassed by just how delayed her reaction was, but in truth, she was just as shocked as Parsons at Peter’s outburst. “Let’s go, Michelle,” Peter said, his voice shaking with anger. With that, he started descending the stairs quickly, and Michelle was forced to lift her skirts up slightly to allow for increased mobility in order to keep up with him. Peter pulled open the door a bit aggressively when they reached the bottom of the stairs, and Michelle momentarily cringed at the banging noise it made when it collided with the wall, but Peter was still storming ahead, so she began walking again. Finally, at the end of the block, Peter slowed down, allowing Michelle to catch up with him. 

Naturally, the first thing she said to express her gratitude for Peter’s defense of her? “You’re insane! That guy’s never gonna order from us ever again and Delmar’s gonna fire me!”

“That man had no right to speak of you that way,” Peter rebutted, waving his hand in a cutting motion through the air. _ “No _right.” Michelle mulled this over, still not knowing how to respond to Peter’s intensity, so she said nothing for a long moment. When there were less people on the next block, she gripped his arm, forcing him to slow down, and after a few more steps, stop completely. She met his intense gaze again, finally able to match it, and finally, the fire in his eyes disappeared, his shoulders fell, and he huffed out a breath. 

“What are you such a gentleman for, anyway?” Michelle found herself asking. When he had stopped her on the street and offered to carry her second bag, the question might have sounded a bit snarky, but when it escaped her lips as she rubbed idle circles into his tricep with her thumb, it was completely genuine.

“My aunt always tells me that you treat all women with the utmost respect,” Peter said, his tone evening out for the first time in several minutes. “She says that’s how my uncle snagged her.” Suddenly, he backpedaled. “Not that I, uh, only helped you out just so that I would ‘deserve a date’ or some baloney, just-”

Michelle clapped her hand on his shoulder lightly, stopping his rambling effectively, and she said, “I got it, Casanova.” Peter broke out into a grin, brushing her hand off of his shoulder and scoffing at Michelle’s joke. 

“Aw, shut it,” he said, unable to better defend himself. Michelle smirked and started walking again, rolling her eyes and gesturing for Peter to follow her with her index finger. He matched her pace quickly as they started down the block again. She could feel his eyes on her, but when she whipped her head around to look at him, he was fixated on some point off to the right. Michelle smirked.

Neither of them spoke for some time. Soon, Michelle began to recognize the streets they walked along and realized that they were getting closer to Delmar’s, and by association, where she had run into Peter. Michelle imagined he would stop soon, and sure enough, he slowed down in front of a nondescript brownstone. When Michelle turned to him, he jerked his thumb in the direction of the door next to him. “Well,” he said, “this is my stop.” Michelle nodded and smoothed out her skirt, which was completely unnecessary. She made a point of ironing her dresses to the point of the dye coming out of the fabric itself, so really this was just a nervous fidget. Michelle hated feeling nervous.

“I should probably head back to Delmar’s,” Michelle agreed, not fully embracing the realization that they had to part ways. Neither she nor Peter made a move to go anywhere. Instead, they stood still, alternatively meeting each other’s eyes for a brief moment and looking off to the side, both wanting to say something but not going through with it. Finally, Michelle couldn’t bear the silence any longer and began to speak. “I just wanted to say-”

But at the same time, Peter started to say something as well. “I was wondering if-” And both stopped, silently urging the other to continue, but once again, neither took the initiative, so Peter said, “Go on, please.” Usually, Michelle wasn’t one to concede, but for some reason she obliged.

“Thank you for what you said to that man,” Michelle said earnestly, unable to meet Peter’s eye, pulling on the sleeve of her coat. “No one’s ever stood up for me like that before, not even close, so… thank you.” Peter simply stood there in the wake of her confession, saying nothing, and it absolutely killed her. 

“Well, go on,” she suddenly cried, unable to contain herself. “I’ve went and said my piece. Now it’s your turn.” Just like that, Peter sprung into action, stretching the bands of his overalls with his thumbs and blowing air out of the side of his mouth. 

Finally, he spoke. “I don’t want you to feel like you owe me nothing after this, but…” He scratched the back of his neck, unable to finish his sentence.

“But?” Michelle prompted wishing he would just get on with it already.

“But, Michelle, I was wondering if you might let me, um, take you out to a club one night.” His hands rubbed the sides of his pants and he let out a sigh as he finished. He was looking at her again with that deep, intense gaze, and Michelle felt absolutely microscopic under it, sure she was blushing up a storm. She looked at the door Peter had pointed at, as if someone stood behind it and would tell her how she was to respond to his invitation to partake in a taboo, a relation between a white boy and a black girl. She was sure he knew what people would think if they saw her with him, so was he dumb, or just plain stupid? - Michelle found herself wanting to say yes, but her internal, self-prejudices held her back.

“Are you sure…?” Michelle asked, finally finding it within herself to look at him, but she wished she hadn’t, because his powerful gaze remained.

“I’m sure, Michelle. I know people will look twice, maybe three times, maybe four, and they may not be so kind. But, if you’re willing to risk it, then so am I.” Peter took a step towards her, smiling suddenly. “If you want to say no, that’s probably the smarter decision, so I get it. I can just stay as that guy who helped with the groceries that one time and we don’t have to ever see each other again.”

_ You’re so much more important than “just a guy,” _Michelle wanted to say, but instead all she could say was, “I…” and Peter nodded, beginning to turn away from her. She grabbed him by the wrist before he took a step towards his door, and he eyed her curiously. “I want to,” she said bluntly, surprising even herself. She noticed the corners of Peter’s mouth quirk upwards. “I was gonna go check out this place called the Cotton Club with a friend tomorrow.” Peter now sported a wide, complete smile, and Michelle couldn’t stop a smirk from forming on her own face before she added, “You can, um, drop by at eight o’clock.”

“All right, Peter said, nodding. “Just tell me where.” So Michelle gave him her address, and when they said their goodbyes, both were smiling shyly. Michelle turned her back on him first, wanting to hide the pure, unadulterated excitement that was threatening to show on her features. The second she heard his door close, she whooped, not loud enough to make passersby think she was loony, but enough to really express the joy coursing through her veins.

This time, when she pushed open the door to her apartment, she hid absolutely nothing. “What’s up with your smiley self lately, starlet?” Her mother asked, using her affectionate nickname from Michelle’s childhood. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume it was a gentleman make you look so smitten.” When Michelle neither confirmed nor denied her mother’s assumption, she gasped, but quickly composed herself. “So it is,” she stated nonchalantly, her eyes sparkling with excitement. Still Michelle said nothing, instead smiling like a crazy person. “Well?” The woman urged. “Tell me!”

“It is a fella,” Michelle admitted, calming down a bit. She was able to curb her enthusiasm as she retold the story, not ignoring the way her mother clutched her heart as Michelle described his yelling at Mr. Parsons, probably feeling the same mix of emotions she had felt while she listened to Peter’s tirade.

After Michelle finished, her mother smiled and asked, “So what’s his name?” Michelle’s face suddenly fell, knowing this was going to be the hard part. Her mother didn’t very much like white men, after being left by one to raise a little mixed girl that was her daughter. She sometimes said that Michelle was the only good thing that had come of her involvement with that man. Michelle sighed, already anticipating her mother’s disappointment, but she pushed on nonetheless.

“His name is Peter,” she finally said, watching her mother process her statement, waiting for her reaction.

“A white boy?” Her mother asked, clutching her bedsheets a little tighter. Michelle winced, and her gaze fell to her lap, where her hands lay idle, only gripping the fabric of her dress. “Michelle…” she heard her mother say, and she met her eyes, which displayed a kind of aged sadness that hid the knowledge and pain of her past.

Michelle nodded, feeling a lump starting to form in her throat and not wanting to speak over it.”I know you know about your father and all that, I’ve told you the story a million times,” her mother continued, a tad wistful. “But if you’re certain you want to take the risk of being seen with this man, I’m not going to stand in your way. I can’t even get up from this bed,” she joked, eliciting a small giggle from Michelle, one of relief. “I can tell you really like this guy, you shoulda seen your face when you talked about him.” Michelle began to protest but her mother held her finger up, silencing her just as quickly. “Don’t even try to deny it, starlet.”

So she didn’t. Instead, she smiled and looked at her mother, who met her eye, enjoying the silence they both helped produce, and allowing herself to bask in her mother’s love for a rare moment.

Michelle leaned forward to peck her mother on her cheek and whispered in her ear, “I love you, momma.”

As she stood, she committed her mother’s smile to memory when she said, “I love you, too.”

One of Michelle’s favorite places to go when she wanted a moment alone was the roof of her tenement building. Tonight, she sat on the roof’s edge, a risky spot, but she wasn’t dumb, knowing to sit as close to solid ground as possible so that she didn’t plummet to an untimely death. In her lap was the newspaper that had caught her eye that morning, and she read it contentedly in the waning light of dusk.

The front page article about the incident had some interesting things to say. As Michelle had already seen, the reporter referred to her as a “damsel” and seemed to go off on tangents about just how helpless she was in her situation. Michelle would tsk at the sexism of reporting, but continue reading nonetheless.

At one point, she felt a presence near her, and she lifted her head from the paper for the first time in a while as she searched for the person who had breached her quiet moment. Michelle looked to her left and saw the Spider-Man standing silently on the roof’s edge a good twenty feet away from her. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she sat stock-still, not knowing what to say or do. Thankfully, he did her the favor of speaking first.

“Hello,” he greeted, as if they were old friends. Michelle couldn’t do much besides wave, opening her hand and moving it side to side in a rigid, uncomfortable motion. The man started walking towards her, eventually taking a seat a respectful distance away, not meaning to overwhelm her, which she greatly appreciated. “I see you’re reading the article,” he said, looking out into the sea of buildings that was Manhattan.

Finally, Michelle found it in herself to speak. “Good stuff,” she said thoughtfully. “You know, I’ve never been in the papers before. Dunno if I should feel honored or not.” The Spider-Man pondered this for a moment, saying nothing. He removed the fedora from his head and placed it next to him on the roof’s edge.

“If I were you, based on the nature of that story, I would hope to stay out of the papers for the rest of my life.” Michelle chuckled, and so did he. A laugh sounded odd escaping his lips, which Michelle chalked up to it being muffled by his mask.

“Still feels nice, though,” Michelle replied. She wrapped her arms around herself in an effort to stay warm, beginning to feel the chill of the night seeping through her coat. “I did what you asked, too,” she continued. “I ‘spread the word.’” She put air-quotes around the last three words. His gargantuan goggle-eyes fixed on her. That still felt odd to her.

“Hence the front-page treatment.” He had an odd, tight-lipped humor about him - something she enjoyed more than she would like to admit.

“I had a question for you,” she said suddenly, her head tilting to the side as she eyed him with curiosity. “What’s that… stuff I saw come out of your wrists?” As she asked the question, the Spider-Man looked down at his well-covered hands, turning them over and inspecting them as if he wondered the same thing himself.

“Oh, you mean this stuff?” He asked, and before she could move he had shot it out again, Michelle watching as it latched onto the newspaper she held in her slightly shaking hands. In the same manner by which he had pulled the knife-bearing thug towards him, he whipped his hand back in a jerky motion and it flew out of her hands before Michelle could stop him, grabbing at thin air with outstretched hands. She offered a weak protest, which he paid no mind to. The man crossed one leg over the other and pretended to read the paper. Michelle looked on in amusement as she phrased her next question.

“Does that stuff come out of you?” He looked up at her from the paper and set it down next to him. 

“Yeah,” was all he said by way of response. Anticipating what she was going to say next, he added, “I know, it’s real kooky. Sometimes even I get disgusted.” Michelle smiled at that. It was easy to forget that he was human, just harder to recognize because she had never seen the face under the mask.

“So,” Michelle began, scooting a bit closer on the ledge, but the Spider-Man didn’t notice. “What brings you here to my roof on this fine evening?” Her question was somewhat sarcastic in nature, but there was an undertone of genuine curiosity which the vigilante seemed to pick up on. Before he could respond, at the last second, she added, “and just how did you know where to find me?” 

“To answer your first question, I just wanted to swing by and check in on you.” Michelle cocked an eyebrow. He owed her nothing, and she certainly wasn’t his responsibility, so she couldn’t discern a real reason as to why he would do so. She wanted to call him out on it, but she knew he had more to say, so she held her tongue. “And as for your second, I have a kinda, well…” he glanced up at her, and she gazed back, prompting him to continue. “A sixth sense. So I could tell you were nearby, and before I knew it, I was on this rooftop.”

Michelle was curious, but she had already asked him so many questions that he was probably getting annoyed with her. All she said by way of response was, “That’s real kooky.” Spider-Man nodded. “For your information, though, Mr. Spider-Man, I’m doing just fine, if you couldn’t already tell.” He nodded again tiredly, which almost discouraged Michelle from continuing, but she pushed along. “Thanks for dropping by, but far as I can see there ain’t nobody holding a knife to my throat.” Michelle knew she was coming off as cagey and rude, but she wasn’t used to people showing concern for her, and so she was acting defensively.

“Well,” he shrugged, “what if I just wanted to see you?”

Michelle was taken aback, fumbling with her words in her mouth, caught well off-guard.

“At least take me out to dinner first,” was what she finally settled on, something to take her mind off of the worry he was displaying for her, but also a dry joke, knowing that a dinner date was off the table (ha ha), no matter if she actually wanted it or not, due to the circumstances of the day, prices having soared and incomes having lowered in a painfully indirect relationship. Michelle heard him mumble something, but she couldn’t pick up the words, which irked her a great deal. Usually, she was a good listener, but tonight she was off her game.

He suddenly stood, dusting himself off. “Pleasure talking to you miss, but I’m afraid I must be going.” Michelle smiled up at him from her seated position. He was real polite for someone with such a menacing aura. It was difficult to connect him with the man whose voice had made her blood turn to ice and had easily overpowered the men who chose to threaten her that night, yet she knew they were one and the same.

Michelle expected him to turn around, hop off the ledge, and descend the stairs, but he did nothing of the sort. Instead, she watched in horror as he slowly began to lean forward into the void, and she shouted, “What in God’s name-” but cutting herself off as he finally fell, his trench coat flapping in the wind behind him. He really was loony. Unless he had some way of not dying from such a drop, surely she was watching the Spider-Man kill himself.

As he came closer and closer to the ground, Michelle felt a pang of real fear. Then, he suddenly whipped out his hand as she had seen before, and the fluid shot out from his wrist, attaching itself to a building on his left. He swung like a pendulum on the silky string, and at the peak of his swing detached himself and shot more out of his other hand to another building. Michelle laughed in amazement and great relief as she watched him get smaller and smaller, until eventually he disappeared behind a building several blocks away.

He certainly knew how to make a dramatic exit, and a very understated entrance. It was almost as if he was showing off just for her, since nobody else was around to witness the phenomenon. Michelle liked the idea, but pushed it aside in her mind. She was just a girl he had saved, nobody special. He probably saved several girls a night from the clutches of evil men with knives and unfriendly faces.

_ That’s enough’a that, _Michelle thought as she picked up the newspaper, tucked it under her arm, and went down the stairs to her apartment. That night, she slept soundly, dreaming of both Peter and the Spider-Man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think of that? I personally like how things escalate slightly in this one. Peter and Michelle were finally introduced to one another :) I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Like I said, the third may take longer to post, but in the meantime, leave a comment if you made it to the end! Until the next!


	3. turned sour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 3! Thanks for sticking with this fic, it doesn't have as many hits as my other one but I guess oneshots are more appealing. I like to think that this one tells a more in-depth story though, so I like it. Finally, we get a little bit of PeterxMJ fluff. It's not tooth-rotting, but it's good. But please, read on and enjoy! Leave kudos and a comment with an opinion or observation if you so please! I've been eating all of your guys' positive feedback right up, so please keep boosting my ego :) (just kidding) without further ado, here it is: Chapter 3!

Michelle had been forced to get rid of many things in order to make ends meet as time marched slowly on and conditions worsened. The first was makeup. While she still owned a few things she dolled herself up with every now and then, Michelle had traded in the rest of it for about a week’s worth of food about a year ago. For the most part, she didn’t mind, thinking that a woman who needed makeup to feel pretty could use an ego boost, but she saw the excitement behind it when she put on a little mascara and lipstick and modeled in the mirror. She didn’t have the money for a vanity anymore - nobody she knew did, but she at least had her full-body mirror.

Her second sacrifice was the nicer clothes she owned. Michelle had been sad to part with them, but evading starvation for just a little while longer was a more attractive idea than ignoring reality and staying preoccupied over silly things such as clothes. The one nice dress she held onto was a simple black piece, with long, lacy sleeves woven into a floral pattern. Michelle loved it for its atypical color - most women preferred lighter tones, and she didn’t put it past them, but black was bold, and beautiful, and dark, everything she aspired to be. The number of jokers she heard asking if she was mourning someone when she wore it out of the house was climbing far too high. And yet, Michelle continued to wear it.

Michelle’s third, final, and easily most painful sacrifice, was her books. Michelle loved books, had loved them since she was a girl. She especially loved the Greek legends - Her favorite was the story of Ariadne, which was ironic considering the existence of a particular spider-themed vigilante in her very own city. Books had been her refuge, serving as a pastime when she didn’t have friends in grade school, and that was fine by Michelle. Friends were overrated to her, at least until she met Betty, and Cindy, and Liz, who she now believed she couldn’t live without.

Michelle’s side of the room had been littered with books - on her bed, on the nightstand, on the floor next to her bed. The mess drove her mother crazy, which was part of the reason why she got rid of them, but the truth was that once again, dire necessities took priority over all luxuries. All that Michelle had now was a stack of about five books that stood on her nightstand, her absolute favorites that she’d rather die for than get rid of.

Every day, Michelle missed the things she had been forced to let go, but she didn’t regret them. She would do anything and everything she could in order to keep herself, and her mother, on this earth, no matter how crummy things got. Michelle thought of herself as a rather selfish person, except when it came to her mother. She was the one thing, the one person, that kept Michelle grounded.

The point was, Michelle didn’t get close to people easily, which was why it was such a big deal to her (and her mother) that she was going down the rabbit hole with the first guy in several years. And a white guy, at that. Michelle knew that, genetically, she was half-white as well has half-black, but the white part of her had disappeared the second her father discovered that her mother was pregnant, and the racists of the world made sure that every second of every day, she was reminded of her blackness, and the inferiority in relation to others that that implied.

Yet, Peter, a young white man, a perfect description of someone that should hate her, saw none of the things that others constantly brought to attention. He saw her as a person, not a color, and that was what really intrigued Michelle about him. At first, she was drawn to him by his dazzling smile, and his admirable muscles, but what sealed the deal for her was his character.

One part of Michelle agonized over their date, wanting to make sure she presented herself as “acceptable” (from a white man’s perspective), and the other part knew that he wouldn’t care. Michelle chose to listen to the latter, but she couldn’t help but feel nervous - it was a _ date, _ after all. She was allowed to be nervous.

Betty yawned, covering her mouth politely, but Michelle still got the sentiment. She had been rambling, as she was prone to doing while nervous, and Michelle had been told before that her mouth could go off like a motor, at a mile a minute. Betty had been on the receiving end of it for several minutes, making the dire mistake of asking about “this date” that Michelle had been “getting so excited about.”

“Oh, dear,” Michelle mumbled, blushing in embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”

Betty shook her head, placing a hand on top of one of Michelle’s and saying, “It’s all right, darling. I’m excited to meet this Peter fellow, he sounds like a delight.” Michelle nodded in agreement. _ That’s one way to put it, _ she almost said. But it would have sounded a bit sappy coming out of her mouth. “I’ve got a date too,” Betty continued, interrupting Michelle’s train of thought. “His name is Ned, and he’s just so wonderful,” she gushed. A wave of guilt washed over Michelle. She had been so focused on herself that she had barely asked Betty about her newest developments.

“Do tell,” Michelle urged, wiggling her eyebrows at Betty, whose cheeks flushed. “Go on.” 

“Well, if you must know…” Betty began, looking down at her hands nervously. She then proceeded to launch into a rant even longer than Michelle’s. She couldn’t help but zone out, half-listening to Betty’s long-winded speech about this “Ned,” while her mind wandered to Peter again, as it had countless times in the last eighteen or so hours.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Michelle,” he’d said yesterday before he walked into his building.

_ Well, I’ll see you tonight, Pete. _

Michelle still wasn’t completely comfortable with the sight of her naked body, even as an adult. A few jokes made at her expense at a younger age that compared her to some rather slender objects had made Michelle insecure about her skinny stature. Even today, with the comforting knowledge that most other girls looked similar to her, now that everyone was starving and losing significant weight, Michelle wasn’t any prouder of her physique.

Which was why she asked her mother to turn her head as she bathed, legs curled in close to her chest, cupping water in her hands to let fall in her wild, untameable mane of hair, and her back, her neck, her knees, her chest. “I don’t understand how you’re still so cagey about this, starlet,” her mother called from across the room. “You’re a beautiful girl. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.” Michelle smiled at that momentarily, with love for her mother, but it faded just as quickly, her insecurities resurfacing after a tiny reprieve.

Michelle finished bathing quickly after that, donning a robe and taking a seat on her bed. Her mother turned back around, leaning her head on her fist as she looked at her daughter, with a gaze of intense love and admiration. It made Michelle nervous with the amount of eye contact she was being faced with, and she blushed deeply, only being able to look back for instants at a time. “You are so beautiful, starlet. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise, okay?” 

Michelle’s voice was small when she responded, “Okay, momma.” She grabbed a towel and mussed up her hair with it, trying her damndest to tamp it down and get it to dry as quickly as possible, but she knew it was a waiting game after twenty years and change of experience. Michelle thanked her past self for choosing to bathe earlier than usual. Slowly, she began to go through the motions, picking out a pair of shoes (really, all of them looked the same, and she was picking between a few pairs of short black heels) and setting it aside, and eventually putting on her brassiere and underwear and sprayed herself with a little perfume, looking into the mirror at herself, trying to muster up the courage to actually put on the dress. 

“You can do this, starlet,” her mother whisper-yelled to her, causing chills to run down her arms and back. “I love you.” Michelle took a deep breath, nodded, gave herself a strong, supporting look in the mirror, and rose to put on the single beautiful dress she owned. 

She slipped it on unceremoniously, pushing her hands through the long sleeves and forcing her head through the tight hole at the top of it. As she smoothed out some of her curls, she heard her mother gasp. “Well, don’t you just look like a million bucks,” she said, smiling wide as a door.

Michelle blushed. “Stop it, momma, you’re gonna make me never want to leave the house again.” But she still let the compliment soak in, knowing that she could never tell herself the same thing. Choosing to distract herself, she sat down to apply the little makeup she owned. A little mascara, some rouge, and, to her dismay, a deep red lipstick that she thought make her look like a dancing clown at a birthday party, but her mother did nothing but gush, once again, about just how stunning she looked.

Every few seconds, Michelle looked at herself in the mirror, adjusting any little detail about her appearance that she thought looked wrong, at the incessant protests of her mother. Michelle took a seat on her bed once more, now only waiting for Peter’s arrival. It was absolutely agonizing, waiting for him to arrive. She looked at the clock on the wall, one of the few things still completely intact in the apartment, which read something close to eight. 

He was coming soon, just not soon enough. Michelle jumped off her bed and began to pace. In the middle of her 29th repetition, she heard a knock on the door. She froze, glancing at her mother, whose eyes told her to _ open the dang door, Michelle. _ She nodded curtly, and walked up to the door, looking through the peephole. It was Peter all right.

Who else would it be? Michelle shook her head at her own silliness, took one final deep breath, and opened the door. 

God, _ he _looked like a million bucks. Tweed jacket, black slacks, sleek and fashionable shoes, and a simple white button down. He looked at her curiously as her eyes traveled his body, and when they returned to his face she blushed deeply. Michelle was blushing far too much. She had to do something about it. She chose to speak.

“Hello,” she said shyly. He smiled at her, and she got that same feeling of her legs turning to jelly. She gripped the doorknob a bit tighter. 

“You look beautiful, Michelle,” he said, sporting a blush of his own. This made her feel better about her own nerves, even though the compliment by itself, unaccompanied by reddened cheeks, wouldn’t have been good for her willpower. They stood in their little bubble of awkwardness a moment longer, until she heard her mother call out from somewhere behind her.

“Is that Pe-e-e-ter?” Her mother called in a sing-songy tone. Michelle rolled her eyes, trying to hide her embarrassment, but it didn’t work. She glanced at Peter apologetically, whose smile only grew when he heard the third voice. 

She watched him lean around her and find her mother in her bed in the corner of the room with his eyes, waving. “Hello,” he called out. “Is that your mother?” He whispered, at which Michelle nodded.

“Michelle’s told me a great deal about you,” her mother said, grinning deviously. She knew exactly what she was doing, and Michelle hated it. He seemed to be enjoying himself, though, so she said nothing in protest, allowing them to become acquainted with one another. 

“Has she?” He asked, glancing at her and cocking an eyebrow in a curious manner, the way his eyes searched her face bringing chills down her spine. 

“Oh, yes.” At this point, they were both prolonging the interaction, and Michelle wanted to run away with Peter in tow, escaping the embarrassment her mother was bestowing upon her and simply enjoying her night. “I’m afraid she likes you very much.”

She watched Peter blush, stumbling over his words before he replied, "O-oh. Well, I’m… glad.”

Michelle silently begged her mother to stop it already, and finally she decided to step in. “Momma, we got to get going if we wanna meet Betty in time. I’ll see you tonight. I love you.” She blew a kiss to her mother, who caught it and planted it on her forehead, which made Michelle grin. She received a wave goodbye and finally, she was able to shut the door behind her.

Now, she and Peter were truly alone, for the first time since yesterday. “Well, um…” Peter mumbled, then ran his hand through his hair. At this point, Michelle had to classify it as a nervous tic. Which meant that by association, he was nervous. Peter, a white boy, was nervous about going out with Michelle, her, a black girl.

Was he nervous because she was black? The thought horrified her for all of one second. No. He had defended her blackness without hesitation. No way he would be caught up on the color of her skin after so clearly showing that her differences didn’t make a difference to him. Michelle let out a deep breath in relief. “Let’s get going,” Michelle said, smiling, trying not to make it sound like an order, but he jumped into action as if she had just yelled at him. She cringed, and reminded herself that she needed to lighten up. Peter offered her his arm, and she gave him a reassuring smile, taking it in her hand and squeezing it gently.

They began to walk in a comfortable silence, enjoying each other’s company without distractions. They began to emerge from the side street on which Michelle lived, and the sidewalk became more densely populated. Oh. She had forgotten about this part - other people. Other people, who would look at her with disgust and Peter with confusion as they walked together. Michelle managed to put her mind off of it for the few seconds that people failed to notice them.

And sure enough, the looks came her way in full force.

First, a group of white boys leaning against the wall of a moving picture theater and smoking cigarettes. They first smiled at Peter, some kind of odd camaraderie thing, but when their gazes shifted to MJ, the smiles soured, turning to frowns of confusion, then gags of disgust. Something tugged at Michelle’s heart, but it was barely noticeable. She decided to distract herself, looking at Peter, who looked slightly up at her. She remembered she was wearing heels, and that she was taller than him, and that gave her a boost of confidence. She smiled, and he did the same. 

Then came the scowls from a pair of women who waved at Peter and batted their eyelashes, but once they honed in on the skin tone of the girl on his arm, they tore their gazes away from her immediately and one of them made a joke, at which the other laughed loudly, like a hyena. It was not a pleasant noise, unlike Peter’s laugh, which reminded her of the gentle waves of a calm ocean. Michelle decided to focus on his arm, which she squeezed again and rubbed with her thumb, leaning into him slightly, allowing some of his warmth to transfer to her, his presence comforting enough for her to stay focused on him and only him.

At this point, they were beginning to attract more widespread attention. People began to move off to the side, making a clear path for them down the sidewalk, and now Michelle could feel dozens of eyes on her, beginning to hear a few murmurs as she and Peter walked. Several times, she heard “Negro-lover” and “dark-skinned whore.” God, these things made her want to shrink into herself and disappear for eternity.

The only thing that was grounding her in this moment was Peter’s presence. She could feel him bristle - he heard them too, and even as her own level of comfort was steadily decreasing, she wanted to do everything in her power to make sure his stayed high. She was burdening him. She was making trouble for him, whereas if he were walking down the street with a white girl, he would be met with smiles of encouragement instead of frowns of confusion and disgust.

Finally, she saw a sign on an awning that read, _ The Cotton Club, _ in swooping cursive, and knew that she had reached a safer space. The white men and women she saw only passed by, not paying any mind to the black girl in their midst because they were too preoccupied with their mindless conversations. That’s how she felt - like an intruder.

Peter finally broke their silence that they had been managing for the last few minutes. “I’m sorry about that awful stuff they were saying,” he said quietly, sounding as if he bore the weight of their offenses on his shoulders, on behalf of all white people.

“It’s not your fault, Pete,” she promised, proceeding to crane her neck and search for Betty. A distraction was better than dwelling on it. 

As if reading her mind, he asked, “So, who are we waiting for? Your friend?” Michelle nodded. 

“She said we’d meet here, but…” Then she saw a flash of blonde hair, and a familiar face under it, confirming her suspicions. It was Betty all right. They both seemed to notice each other at the same time, waving enthusiastically. She finally took notice of Betty’s date. He was a somewhat stocky Filipino man, with chubby cheeks and a smile plastered onto his face, looking utterly pleased with himself. He reminded her of a child who had just been gifted exactly what he wanted for Christmas, and Michelle had to agree that Betty was some present.

“Hello, darling!” Betty said, beaming. She gestured with her free hand towards her date, and said, “This is Ned.”

“You must be Betty,” Peter said, reaching out his hand for her to shake. She giggled and took it, shaking gingerly and Michelle watched with a pang of jealousy as they smiled at each other, but just like that the moment was over and Peter was shaking Ned’s hand, giving him the same treatment.

“Nice to meet you, Ned,” Peter said, and Michelle could tell from the look the two men shared that they were going to connect instantly. 

“Hell of a grip you’ve got there, sir,” Ned said, clutching his hand in mild pain but smiling nonetheless. 

Michelle finally decided to introduce Peter by name. “This is Peter, if you didn’t already know,” she said, resting her hand on his shoulder. 

“I’ve heard so much about you,” Betty said with a glint in her eye. Michelle rolled her eyes as Peter’s eyebrows raised in surprise.

“You’re the second person who’s told me that tonight,” Peter responded, shooting Michelle a quick glance and a curious smile. She decided she needed no further embarrassment, and tugged lightly on his arm.

“How about we go in?” Michelle asked, and everybody nodded or made a hum of acquiescence. They walked inside, and the instant she stepped through the doors, she was in awe. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, creating a pleasant mood lighting in the otherwise dark room, and she heard the quiet din of private conversations among the dancing couples on the dance floor. The music of a live ensemble wafted through the air, playing a slow, romantic number. Michelle found herself already swaying lightly to the music as she and the other three observed the scene in front of them. 

“My, what a place,” Betty said breathily. Michelle nodded in agreement, even though she knew nobody was looking at her. Almost simultaneously, the two pairs began to walk towards a table, setting down their coats and taking seats.

“Would you like a drink?” She heard Peter ask, at which she frowned. Wasn’t the Prohibition still going on, or was that a thing of the past and her memory inadequate? 

“I thought those were still illegal,” Michelle mused, but Peter shook his head.

“Nah, they got rid of that a little while ago. Come on, shoot,” he urged. Michelle shrugged, honestly fine with anything, but you couldn’t exactly order “anything” at the bar, so she told him she would like a gin rickey and Betty told Ned she wanted the same. The two men walked off towards the bar, deep in conversation, and Michelle smiled as she watched them talk animatedly about something, already observing the formation of a bond.

She felt a hand on hers, and Michelle’s gaze shot up to look at Betty, who was grinning at her. “I know you said he was cute,” she said, “but didn’t you mean ‘total stud?’” Michelle quirked an eyebrow at Betty’s statement, finding it incredibly amusing.

“Careful, now,” she deadpanned, “that’s _ my _ date you’re talking about.” Betty nodded vigorously in response. 

“Don’t worry,” she replied, placing a hand on her chest as she said, “I’m not going to steal your date. I already like my own too much.” Michelle chuckled with Betty.

“He seems shy,” Michelle observed. “But he and Peter seem to like each other.” The two women looked together to where Peter and Ned stood, laughing at a joke Ned had apparently told, and Peter clapped him on the shoulder as if they were already the best of buddies. It was heartwarming.

“Shy is an understatement, darling. I nearly had to ask him myself to join me at the club tonight.” Michelle chuckled at the thought, imagining the shy, adorable Betty hinting to the shy, adorable Ned that she wanted him to take her out on a date. Suddenly, Betty’s demeanor changed, her face displaying concern. “How are the people treating you?”

The question made Michelle freeze, face displaying a casual indifference, but she felt her pulse quicken. Immediately, images of the sneering faces of her hecklers on the streets flashed through her mind, and she felt the color drain from her face, not knowing how to respond. “Not- not well,” Michelle managed to say. Betty noticed her discomfort and squeezed her hand reassuringly with a look of sympathy. 

“Two gin rickeys for the ladies,” a voice called, and the two girls whipped their heads around to see Ned and Peter returning to their table. Michelle let out a deep breath, trying to look unfazed for Peter, but he seemed to notice anyway.

He set the cocktails down on the table, then leaned down next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You alright, darling? You’re white as a sheet.” As if answering his question, Michelle felt color rush to her face at his use of a pet name. 

“I’m all right,” she reassured, picking up one of the gin rickeys and taking a sip from it. She then held it out as if for a toast, and said, “I just needed a drink.” 

Betty laughed, raising her own glass and announcing, “Amen to that.” All then took a sip of their respective drinks, and once the men sat, conversation began to flow. Michelle stole a couple glances at Peter when she wasn’t talking, noticing the way he leaned in when somebody said something interesting and the way he spoke animatedly whenever he had a point to make, or a story to tell. It gave her a vibe that he was excited to be with her tonight, and the thought made her chest swell with pride. The second he noticed her looking at him, though, she would turn away and look pointedly at either Betty or Ned.

Eventually, their glasses were empty, and Betty brought up the topic of dancing. Ned seemed enthusiastic, and he took her excitedly onto the dance floor, placing his hands on a respectable spot on Betty’s back as they swayed to the music. Michelle and Peter watched for a moment, smiling at the other pair’s shared excitement, then Peter asked her, “Would _ you _ like to dance?” 

Michelle’s throat closed up involuntarily. Yes, she wanted to. She wanted to sway in front of all of the white couples with pride, sticking her tongue out and saying, _ “Up yours!” _with a grin on her face as Peter twirled her, showing that she didn’t care at all what they thought. The disappointing truth was, she did. Her fear of their reactions rooted her to her seat. Peter seemed to sense her inner turmoil, and placed his hand on her arm, rubbing it idly, attempting to comfort her. She appreciated the gesture more than she could express with words. Again and again, this white boy proved to her that he cared about her well-being, that he was like no other man she had ever met before. 

“We can wait,” he said, speaking for the both of them, and Michelle nodded gratefully, managing a smile. Then Peter asked, hand still on her arm, “You want another drink?” Michelle nodded again. Was he some kind of mind reader or something? Michelle knew that she wouldn’t step anywhere near the dance floor without a little bit more booze. Peter stood quickly and made his way back to the bar.

In her temporary solitude, she decided to focus on Betty and Ned again, who were smiling nervously at each other as they swayed in a lazy circle. Every now and then, one would step on the other’s foot, and the foot-stepper would turn red in the face and mumble an apology, at which the other would say “It’s okay” over and over (Michelle read lips just as often as she read books). They looked happy, though. They looked so happy that they weren’t able to contain it in their faces, both bearing dopey smiles that stretched from cheek to cheek. 

A realization struck Michelle - she would never be able to have with Peter what Betty and Ned had with each other, an open, joyous relationship that was seen as yet another darling example of young love, while Peter’s and Michelle’s pairing would be seen as basically a crime (Michelle was sure it _ was _ a crime in some more closed-minded states). Usually, Michelle wasn’t one to bend to adversity, but something about these circumstances was different. Other times, she had been able to push through easily, since it was a one-time thing, but with a relationship, something more long-term, she would be encountering it constantly, as long as she was involved with or even seen walking next to Peter.

_ Stop it, Michelle. You’re driving yourself crazy. Nothing good will come of these thoughts. You’re only making things harder - _

“Michelle?” Peter had returned, another gin rickey in his hand, and Michelle snapped to attention. She looked up at Peter’s perpetually smiling face, and he held out the drink to her. She took it gratefully and downed it quickly in a single motion. She needed the boost, and it wasn’t until she looked up at Peter again that she had done something untoward. His eyes held a gaze of amazement as they flicked from the empty glass in her hand to her lips. If he kept looking at her like that, she was going to do something really stupid. Michelle turned a bit red, embarrassed at being caught.

“I’m sorry, that wasn’t very… ladylike of me,” Michelle said shyly, setting the glass down on the table and looking down at the floor. 

“That’s all right. I could tell you needed the drink,” Peter replied, laughing, and Michelle’s heart fluttered. He was right. As if on cue, she began to feel the alcohol buzzing in her veins, and a smile overtook her face. 

“I don’t want to be acting a fool in front of… these folks,” Michelle said, waving her hand in a sweeping motion across the room. 

“I’m sure they won’t care,” Peter said reassuringly. Then he leaned down and whispered directly into her ear, “They’re probably all just as drunk as you are.” Michelle giggled, feeling goosebumps where his breath had brushed against her skin. _ Uh oh, _she thought. When Michelle started giggling, it meant the alcohol was really getting to her. But how had he known that she was drunk? Maybe she was a bit more obvious than originally thought. Michelle had to start working on her acting.

“You wanna dance?” She asked spontaneously. Peter started, obviously not expecting her question. He chuckled nervously, doing the neck-rubbing thing and rising back to his full height, away from her. Momentarily, she missed the warmth his proximity to her brought.

“Do _ you?” _ He replied, cocking an eyebrow. It took Michelle just a moment to think it over. Yes, she wanted to dance with Peter. That was the whole reason they were here. If there was one thing Michelle liked about alcohol, it was that decisions were a million times easier with slightly impaired brain function.

“Yeah, I do, Casanova,” Michelle joked, using the name she had called him yesterday for a second time. “Now, do you wanna dance or not?” 

“Yes. Definitely,” Peter replied quickly, offering a hand, which Michelle took instantly, allowing him to help her up from her chair, which he did with surprising ease. He pulled her up a little too quickly, in fact, and she stumbled, almost falling face-first into the next chair, but thankfully Peter was in the way. He stopped her, wrapping his free arm around her waist to steady her, and Michelle instinctively leaned into him, inhaling his scent. She was sure she looked like an absolute klutz, but she didn’t care as long as Peter was there to act as a buffer. Also, he smelled good. Kind of like -

_ Jeez, Michelle, let it go. _ This was the second time she found herself connecting Peter’s musk to that of the Spider-Man. She stopped herself by focusing on Peter’s warmth again, absorbing it as best she could before he loosened his grip on her, holding her out in front of himself, probably to accurately determine her level of intoxication. “You probably don’t want to dance with a drunken klutz like me, I’m gonna step all over your feet,” Michelle said, smiling.

Peter returned the smile, replying, “Don’t worry about it, I prepared.” When she quirked an eyebrow at his cryptic statement, he elaborated, “I took another shot when I was at the bar. Didn’t want to be the boring sober guy. I should be feeling it soon.” Michelle laughed out loud then, and she could feel a few pairs of eyes shoot towards her for an instant, but they looked away just as quickly.

“Well then, let’s go, huh?” Michelle urged, tapping him on the arm. Peter nodded, pulling her towards the dance floor, and she submitted to his direction of her barely-swaying body. They found a decent gap between several pairs of dancers, shuffling around and awkwardly positioning their hands on each other’s bodies. Michelle felt his hands slowly descend her back until they settled at a point just above her behind. She flushed, and Peter quickly raised his hands up to a point that was too high. He looked scared, handling her as if she were a precious diamond. Michelle smiled and pushed his hands down slightly with her elbows, and he obliged, lowering them again to a point slightly above where he had first placed them. Content with his hand placement, Michelle then settled her hands upon his shoulders, ideal position to allow her to wrap them around his neck if she felt the urge to do so.

Slowly, they began to sway. Michelle focused on the music, trying to get a sense of the rhythm.

“I’m in the mood for love,” she heard the singer croon, “simply because you’re near me.” Michelle glanced at Peter, who looked back with a nervous smile on his face. She vaguely remembered something her mother had told her about “respectful eye contact” with a dance partner, but until now Michelle hadn’t been able to put that knowledge to use. She looked away from Peter’s face and found Betty and Ned in the crowd, who were still both smiling like absolute maniacs. Betty caught her eye and winked.

Michelle tore her gaze away, looking down at hers and Peter’s feet as they moved back and forth. She made a conscious effort not to step on his feet, knowing that it would happen sooner or later. “You seen Betty and Ned?” She asked, meeting Peter’s eye once again. His face lit up the second she began to speak to him, but Michelle decided not to focus on that right now.

“Yeah, they look like fools, don’t they?” Peter replied, smiling. She felt his hands adjust on her hips slightly. 

“Not any more foolish than we do,” Michelle rebutted. “You’re getting tipsier by the second,” she added as an afterthought, excited to see his reaction. 

Her ribbing got the desired effect. Peter spluttered, then managed, “I- I am _ not. _Look at yourself.” 

Michelle faked a frown, pretending to be confused. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. Her claim seemed to stand well enough until the inevitable happened: She felt her foot land on something that wasn’t the floor of the club, and Peter grimaced in mild pain. He then grinned at her as she quickly readjusted, trying to pretend it hadn’t happened, but the damage was done.

“No idea, huh?” Peter asked, biting his lip to keep in a laugh. 

“Shut up,” she muttered shyly, avoiding eye contact, sure that if she looked directly at him she would turn red as a beet. Even with her increased height thanks to the heels, she felt small, like Peter was in control of this situation. 

Graciously, he said nothing else concerning her blunder, instead opting to close his eyes, presumably to focus on the music as they danced. Michelle inspected his peaceful face, which was a marvel to behold. A faint smile was frozen upon his face and he slightly tilted his head, as if it would help him hear the music better. His eyebrows were slightly raised. 

Michelle was struck with the sudden urge to kiss him. She didn’t have much experience with kissing, since most of the dates she’d been on in the past didn’t end well, but despite her inexperience, she wanted to do it anyway. She glanced down at his lips, feeling drawn to them. A gravitational force began to pull her towards him, and it wasn’t until her face was inches from his that she stopped herself.

_ That’s too forward. He should be given a warning before I do anything of the sort. _

Michelle heard the beginning of a new song started to play, and Peter opened his eyes, registering the change, and the proximity of Michelle’s face to his. She quickly pulled away, acting as if she was never that close to him, and to her great satisfaction, he brushed it off. She then moved her arms up, wrapping them around his neck, and she noticed a blush creeping up Peter’s neck. She smiled. 

“Not too bad for a drunk woman,” Peter commented, and Michelle rolled her eyes.

“One time,” she said. “One time, I stepped on your foot. Don’t let it get to your head.” She tried to sound stern, but she was smiling as she said it. 

“Oh, I’m definitely letting it get to my-” Suddenly, he stopped, frowning. Almost instantly, it was as if Peter sobered up. He looked off into the distance, and Michelle followed his gaze, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary: laughing men and women, enjoying the music.

“What’s wrong, Pete?” She asked, confused. Had she done something?

“I- I have to go,” he said, obviously reluctant to speak, and his hands fell limp at his sides. The words tore through Michelle’s heart like the claws of a bear. Her breath caught in her throat, and her eyes burned with the beginning of bewildered tears.

“What?” Michelle’s voice was small as she spoke the one word. No. He couldn’t leave, not right as they were starting to have a good time. It was wrong. Michelle was convinced she had somehow hurt him, or said or done something wrong, but she knew in her heart of hearts that she hadn’t - his reaction was completely spontaneous. It didn’t take away from the hurt and confusion she was feeling.

“I’m so sorry, Michelle,” he said quietly, and he stepped away from her, unraveling her hands from around his neck, allowing them to fall at her side, forgotten. 

“Where are you going?” Her voice cracked with despair. They were standing still in a room of swaying dancers, and complaints began to pick up around them. Michelle ignored them. 

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and he sounded just as dejected as she did, before turning on his heel and walking away. Michelle was left reeling in the middle of the dance floor, watching him jog away from her, out of the room, into the night. A single tear fell from her eye. Then another. 

She couldn’t let people see her like this. Not in this state. She went as fast as her legs could carry her to the sign that read, “Ladies,” and shoved open the door. She locked it behind her, and turned.

In the mirror, black tear tracks stained her cheeks. The sight of her own face caused more tears to fall, and soon she was racked with sobs, unable to look at herself, stumbling back towards the wall and falling all the way down to the floor in a sitting position. Finally, she let it all out. She began to bawl like a child, still _ so _confused, and terribly, terribly hurt. The thing that made it all worse is that she knew she did nothing wrong. Peter had just seen something, noticed something that made him turn his back on her and walk out on her. This realization made her sob louder, and even louder when she tried to contain them but failed. 

After a good minute of crying in the otherwise silent bathroom, she heard a knock at the door. “Occupied,” she called out weakly, her voice shaking, hoping that whoever it was would leave her be in her puddle of tears.

“It’s Betty,” she heard muffled through the door. Oh. After a moment of sniffling, Michelle lifted herself up from the floor, unlocked the door, and looked into the blank face of Betty, which became one of concern when she noticed Michelle’s tears. “Goodness, what happened to you?”

“Close the door,” Michelle said, wiping under her right eye, trying to remove the makeup, but she knew that it would only smudge. _ Stupid, _ she thought. Betty obliged, and it wasn’t until she heard the _ click _ of the lock that she spoke again. “He walked out on me.”

“Why?” Betty asked, taking Michelle’s hand and rubbing it in an attempt to soothe her. It worked, just a little bit. 

“I don’t- I don’t _ know _ why,” Michelle said, tilting her head up to look at the ceiling, wishing her tears would just go away. “He just said he had to go and he just. Did it.”

“Oh, honey,” Betty cooed with a note of sympathy. “I’m so sorry.” 

Michelle was sent over the edge. She began sobbing again instantly, wrapping her arms around Betty in a crushing embrace. She leaned down, burying her face into Betty’s shoulder, and she knew that she was drenching Betty's dress, but the other girl said nothing in protest. Betty simply ran her hand through Michelle’s hair and held her.

“I was so excited, Betty. _ So _excited,” Michelle spoke into Betty’s collarbone. She continued to stroke Michelle’s hair.

“I know,” was all she said. “I know.” 

Michelle finally lifted her head from Betty’s shoulder, wiping her eyes and sniffling, finally able to regain some of her composure after her breakdown. “I’m sorry,” Michelle mumbled. “Now your dress is all wet.” Michelle chuckled.

Betty giggled. Then Michelle laughed again, and Betty did, again, and they began to laugh harder and harder until more tears were flowing from Michelle’s eyes and they were both bending over, out of breath.

“Oh,” Betty breathed, wiping at her eyes, smiling. “What do you say we get outta here?” Michelle nodded, and the other girl opened the door, tugging her out by the hand. Michelle followed dutifully, and when they ran into Ned, Betty said something about a small emergency. Being the gentleman he was, Ned understood and let them go. 

When they finally found fresh air, Michelle took her first deep breath in a little while, allowing herself to feel the brisk night air around her. Peter’s words rang in her ears suddenly:

_ I have to go, Michelle. I’m sorry. _

As grateful as Michelle was for Betty’s company, it didn’t help her completely forget that Peter had done something terribly, terribly wrong to her. The most confusing part was, it looked like he didn’t even want to leave her, but whatever was waiting out there for him was obviously more important than a dance with Michelle. That didn’t do much for her in terms of boosting her ego.

His face as he said those things, though… it was one that displayed reluctance, a great inner turmoil. And it was completely sudden. There was something Peter wasn’t telling her. Michelle wanted to find out what that was, but she wasn’t going to go chasing after him. It wasn’t like her to do something like that. If anything, Peter was the one who should be chasing her after pulling a stunt like the one he did.

Then, that would be her plan. Michelle would let Peter come to her. And if he didn’t, well, she could do just fine without him. She had done well without him for the other 22 years of her life, so she knew she could survive.

Nonetheless, she felt a tug in her heart at the thought of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. I'm sorry for this ending :( Just a little bit of whump that nobody asked for, but trust me, it'll get better. It might take time, but it will get better. Leave a comment if you made it to the end! The fourth chapter is already completed, but I'm working on the fifth right now, so it may be a few days until the next. In the meantime, like I said, leave a comment or kudos! Until the next!


	4. threatened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What if I say no?” Now that was the real question. Usually, people like Hammerhead wouldn’t take no for an answer. She expected him to lash out, order one of his goons to shoot or even attack Spider-Man himself. But he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he smiled again, and somehow this unnerved Michelle more than an attack would have.  
“Then we can stay on separate paths.” Michelle sighed in relief. “But.” And she perked up immediately, waiting together with Spider-Man for him to continue. “If you try to get in my way, my men and I will not hesitate to kill you dead. We’ve got an agenda, and if anyone tries to throw a wrench in our plans, we will pull it right back out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my fastest update yet, I guess I was inspired after finishing the third chapter. This one gets interesting, so be prepared :) You know the drill. Leave some kudos and a comment with an opinion or observation if you so desire! Without further ado, enjoy the fourth chapter!

Peter was a shmuck. A jerk. A flake. An asshole. 

Those names went on a rotation in his brain as he walked away from Michelle. He was even saying them under his breath a little bit. He really didn’t want to leave her, but his sixth sense had told him something - he’d heard the begging of a man, asking for forgiveness, for mercy, anything. Peter knew he had to act fast. He picked up his pace to a jog, and shoved through the doors of the club, looking for the alley where he’d stashed his suit. Before he had picked up Michelle earlier that night, he scoped out the joint and found the best place to hide his suit if anything went wrong. 

He turned a corner around the building and found the small rucksack that held his ensemble. He quickly tore his fancy clothes off and changed as fast as humanly possible. When he pulled his mask over his face, he closed his eyes and Michelle’s heartbroken expression flooded his mind, forcing him to stop in his tracks. Peter grimaced at the thought, but quickly shook himself out of it and ran in the direction of the sound he’d heard. He jumped a good 10 feet in the air and shot out a web, aiming at the wall of a tenement across the street. 

The feeling of soaring through the air weightlessly was enough to tear Peter’s mind away from Michelle. Breathing a sigh of relief, he honed in on the sounds of the man he’d heard moments ago. 

“Please, man,” Peter heard him say. “I’ll give you anything you want. I just want to get back to my family…” Those words struck a chord within Peter, forcing him to falter and almost forget to shoot out another web. He was reminded of Uncle Ben. 

_ Stop it, Peter. Focus. _The sounds were getting closer, and as Peter made a turn into the street where the man’s voice was coming from, he heard the sound of a gun’s chamber cocking, clear as day, as if he was watching from only a few feet away. 

Finally, Peter’s eyes landed on a man standing in front of another that was on his knees, hands up in surrender. Peter shot a web directly behind the man to bring him towards them faster. 

He landed gracefully, and at the sound of boots hitting pavement the man that held the gun spun around quickly, stumbling slightly due to how fast he turned.

“Let him go,” Peter growled. “Or I’ll make you regret ever laying your hands on him.” He leaned to the side slightly, looking around the gun-wielding man at the one on his knees. Bruises spotted his face, and a little bit of blood was trailing from his nose. “You all right, sir?” The man simply stared blankly at him, not knowing what to say. 

“This heater right here,” interrupted the thug, “will tear through you like you’re nothing, so I’d watch it.” He grinned, trying to effect an intimidating aura.

Peter simply chuckled. The amount of idiots that had tried the same trick on him just ended up on their asses with a concussion. The man frowned, confused, and a bit humiliated. “The hell are you laughing at?” He asked, voice trembling. Good. He was afraid. Peter shot out a web at the man’s gun, and it flew out of his hand, the poor guy not having time to react in any way whatsoever. 

“You mean, this one?” Peter asked, a sarcastic, almost evil tone carried in his voice. He turned the revolver over in his hand, inspecting it. It was a generic piece: shiny and grey. He hated guns. He used to be afraid of them. Hell, maybe he still was, but at least the mask hid the fear, and his recently discovered powers added to his confidence that guns could no longer hurt him, as long as he wasn’t reckless.

Peter looked up at the man who formerly held the gun that was now in his own hand. He looked absolutely terrified. “Impressive how quickly the tables can turn, huh?” Peter asked, wanting to prolong this guy’s fear for as long as he possibly could. 

“Look, man, I don’t want any trouble,” the thug begged. Peter scoffed. “You don’t gotta do nothin’. I can just go.”

“Oh, so now that _ I’m _the one with the gun, you don’t want any trouble, huh?” Peter took a menacing step towards him, and the man stumbled backwards. “The truth is,” he continued, chucking the gun off to the side, which the thug watched him do with despair, “I don’t need a gun to do some real damage.” 

The thug’s eyes widened, and he began to piss himself. Peter looked away in disgust, grimacing at the sound of the liquid trickling down the man’s leg. He’d been aware of the effect he could have on the people he terrorized, but nobody had ever pissed themselves because of him. The thought sobered Peter, and he turned to look at the thug again.

“Get out of here,” he barked suddenly. The thug didn’t move, simply looking at him like he had just asked him to lick his boot. “Go! Before I change my mind.” The man didn’t need another word, bolting out of there as fast as he could. Peter didn’t spare him a second glance, instead focusing on the man who had witnessed the entire ordeal. 

“You all right, sir?” Peter asked again. The man nodded vigorously, still unable to speak a word. He helped the man to his feet, and they looked at each other for a moment. 

“You’re the Spider-Man!” he finally said, a look of recognition taking over his face, voice shaking with shock and probably a little bit of leftover fear. “Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.” Peter nodded in acknowledgement.

“Don’t mention it. Now get on home, huh?” The man nodded vigorously, and shook Peter’s hand. The gesture caught him off-guard for a moment, but then the man was running off, back to his family. Peter shrugged to himself, then jumped to the wall, running up it, weaving through the fire escapes until he reached the roof. He jumped to the side of the roof that faced the street, and he looked out into the sea of buildings, taking a breath.

Now that he was alone, without a crime with which to distract himself, Peter’s thoughts strayed to Michelle once again. 

_ “Where are you going?” She was beginning to really register his words, he could tell by her glistening eyes and voice that was beginning to crack with emotion. _

_ “I’m sorry,” was all he could manage, because if he said any more he would never be able to leave. Slowly, he began to distance himself from her, her hands falling limp at her sides and she watched him go. Tears were on the verge of spilling from her eyes, and Peter wanted to wipe them away, he wanted to tell her that he was kidding, that he was going to stay with her, but there was no time for lies. A man’s life was at stake. _

Peter felt rotten. He felt rotten, for doing that to Michelle, and for depriving himself of a great night with a girl he really fancied. But all he had been able to hear were the man’s pleas of desperation, and he was gone before he could change his mind. 

Not wanting to feel that way any longer, Peter jumped off the ledge into open air, and began to swing. The wind screamed in his ears, and Peter smiled. Nothing would ever beat flying. 

Peter was able to forget himself for a few minutes as he swung, barely focusing on where he was, until he found the roof of his tenement, and landed on the edge of the roof. Peter fought the urge to rip the mask off, since he hadn’t been Spider-Man for very long, and had to get used to following all steps relevant to keeping his identity a total secret from everyone. To think, if Peter had explained to Michelle -

No. He couldn’t. As badly as he wanted to be with her, he knew deep down that the mask would ruin any attempts he made to get closer with people. 

Peter’s sixth sense flared up, causing him to look down at the empty street - well, empty aside from a single figure, walking briskly down the sidewalk. He focused on them, and thanks to his enhanced vision he could make out their face-

Michelle. Speak of the devil, huh? From his perch on the roof, he could see that her eyes were puffy from what Peter assumed were tears. He felt a pang of something awful, and his breath caught in his throat. He was the one who had made her cry. Thankfully, she seemed to be done crying, and simply focused on walking home. 

Peter wanted very badly to follow her, to even walk her home, but he knew he couldn’t do that to her, or himself. He knew that if he wore the mask, none would be the wiser and Michelle wouldn’t want to kill him, but whether he wore the mask or not Peter wouldn’t be able to handle himself. His overwhelming guilt would get the best of him and Michelle would find out that he and the Spider-Man were the same. 

So instead of swooping down, Peter forced himself to stay put and simply watch her walk on by. It hurt, but Peter knew it was the right decision. When she turned a corner, Peter sighed in defeat and receded into the tenement.

He closed the door quietly as he could when he reached his apartment, and when he heard it click shut, he hung up his jacket, surveying his dark apartment with tired eyes. His aunt was (hopefully) asleep by now, and Peter was thankful, not in the mood to talk to her after such a long, emotionally and physically draining day. He walked briskly to his bedroom and tried his best to fall asleep, but despite his absolute exhaustion, he barely got a wink, since every time he closed his eyes he saw Michelle’s tear-stained face.

The next morning, he woke up to the smell of eggs. Odd, since most mornings they went without breakfast. Even though May and Ben had been decently well off before the Depression, times had changed. Jobs were scarce, food was scarcer, and… Ben was dead. 

Peter shook himself awake, rising from his bed and wiping all the gunk out of his eyes. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. For a second, his memory of last night was hazy, and Peter hoped fleetingly that it had been a dream, but quickly his sense of reality set in once again and Peter knew that was just wishful thinking. His actions had consequences, and he had to stop living in the past, the world that existed before he got his powers and became Spider-Man.

Not wanting to be alone with his thoughts any longer, Peter pushed open the door to find May sitting in her favorite chair, nursing a cup of tea in her hands. 

“Hey, May,” he said tiredly, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. He took a seat at the table, directly across from her.

“How’d it go with that Michelle girl?” The woman asked, eyeing him over her mug. Peter flinched. He’d forgotten that he had told her about Michelle and that May hadn’t seen him since yesterday afternoon. She noticed this, and assumed, “Not well, huh?”

Peter looked down at his hands, his feelings of shame returning. “It went well at first,” he said, still not meeting her eyes. “But then something… came up, and I had to leave right in the middle of it, and I can tell that she’s not happy. I don’t know if she’ll give me another chance, May.”

His aunt quirked an eyebrow. “Was it really so important that you had to leave immediately?” It was moments like those when Peter felt a chill run down his spine, unable to shake the feeling that May knew all about his nightly activities. 

“It- it was,” was all Peter could say. May leaned back in her chair, pondering his statement. He finally looked up at her, examining her facial expression. It was one of curiosity, disappointment at her nephew’s antics, and that ever-present look of knowledge that Peter always found comfort in. No matter what he asked her, it seemed like she always had an answer.

“Well, if you really want it to work out with her, then you have to tell her what made you leave so suddenly.” Peter nodded, knowing she was right. “All strong relationships are built on trust, and it seems to me that you broke it pretty quickly.” Okay, that stung a little bit. He felt an urge to defend himself, but held his tongue, knowing that even though May’s words were hurtful, they were the cold, hard truth.

“What if… what if telling her would make things even more complicated?” Peter asked, trying to skirt around the reason why as best he could with the phrasing of his question. May frowned, and he wanted to facepalm.

“If you can’t tell her, then you have to let her go, Pete. It’s what’s best for her, and for you.”

“I don’t… I don’t want to let her go,” Peter admitted, hanging his head once again. May took a long sip from her cup of tea, staring him directly in the eye with a stern gaze.

“Then you know what you have to do.” She responded with finality, allowing her words to hang in the air as she stood and walked to her bedroom, leaving Peter behind to reflect on them. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling stress start to set in, and he paced around the table, running his hands over the grooves in it to distract himself from all of the thoughts that were running willy-nilly through his head.

Michelle deserved an explanation, he knew that. He also knew that the explanation would only make everything worse. Peter really liked her, but when it came down to it, there were two choices: Forget she exists, and feel the heartbreak, or admit that he’s Spider-Man, face the consequences, and more likely than not, feel the heartbreak. Neither option sounded appealing, but Peter was pretty sure that since he absolutely hated confrontation, he would be going with option one for the foreseeable future.

Finally having come to a decision, Peter returned to his bedroom to get dressed for the day, pulling on whatever clean clothes he found in his dresser. When he returned to the door to set out for work, he sighed, gave the apartment a once-over, and left.

Hefting crates was a mind-numbingly boring job. Peter hated it with every ounce of his being, but it paid decently well, and he would do anything to help May and himself stay afloat.

That didn’t make it any more entertaining. Peter hadn’t broken a sweat all day, knowing he could probably carry five at a time, but forcing himself to stick to one, at most two, so as not to raise any suspicion. Some of the shmucks who were working alongside him commented on his energy, serving as an unconscious reminder to go slower. 

“You think they’ll give you a raise for working faster, huh, buddy? Maybe a little kiss on the cheek?” Cue snickering from several men. Of course, they were unnerved when Peter laughed with them and carried on as if they had said nothing insulting. 

All he wanted was an excuse to get the hell out of here: his sixth sense, a mild crisis that caught people’s attention so that he could slip away, anything. 

As if on cue, Peter felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up straight, and an electrifying sense that something was nearby. He focused his hearing so that he could hear whatever it was that gave him the feeling of danger, but everything was eerily… normal. For the first time since his powers were developing after he was bitten, it seemed as if his sixth sense was just acting up.

However, it didn’t pass after a few seconds. Instead, it remained, and Peter knew he had to find the source of the danger. 

“You guys know where the men’s room is?” Peter asked suddenly, to nobody in particular, and began to walk towards a well-hidden exit that it seemed only he knew about. 

“Yeah, it’s the other way, numbskull-” Someone called, but Peter was already gone. He sprinted behind the closest freight container and slinked through the exit, running across the street to a nondescript alley. Being the Spider-Man meant he had to be well-prepared for anything to go wrong, and that meant bringing the suit everywhere he went and hiding it where nobody would find it, so that it was easily accessible in case of unexpected danger. This was certainly unexpected, but the danger was yet to be found. Nonetheless, Peter got into his black getup, and when he pulled the mask over his face he took a deep breath, trying to center himself and find the danger for sure this time.

Finally, he heard the breaking of glass from some unknown point a few blocks away. Peter sprung into action, clambering up a nearby wall and hopping between them until he flew out over the roof of a tenement. He jogged to the edge of the roof and perched, squatting between his knees and balancing himself on one arm, with the other in the air, ready to shoot out a web at a moment’s notice. Peter surveyed the surrounding city blocks, still seeing nothing until he looked to the right, finding three men filing into a store with unfamiliar black objects in their hands, and when he focused on them, he discovered that they were Tommy guns. 

Peter felt the blood drain from his face. He had never seen such a weapon with his own eyes before, but all he knew was that they were dangerous. They were only wielded by people who meant business. Peter steeled himself before dropping in, taking a deep breath and then plunging into the void. He wasted no time swinging to the scene of the crime, feeling his boots make small grooves in the sidewalk as he skidded to a stop on the ground. 

“What did I miss?” Peter called, jogging into the store, bell jangling when he pushed the door open. But nothing was happening. Instead, he saw the same three men standing completely still with blank expressions on there faces. Peter felt significantly unsettled. “What’s goin’ on?” He asked, tensing, prepared for some sort of surprise attack, but it didn’t come. Instead, the goon in the middle spoke.

“We work with Hammerhead,” he said. He seemed to wait for some reaction from Peter, as if he should recognize the name or cower in fear at the mention of it.

“Who?” Peter asked, clueless. He had never heard of a Hammerhead. Was this some kind of joke? It would be a pretty twisted one if true.

“You don’t know H- look. The point is, he wants to talk to you.” Again, the man looked at him expectantly, like this was something Peter wasn’t allowed to refuse, but he fought to hold back a laugh. He had never heard of this Hammerhead shmuck before and all of a sudden he wanted Spider-Man’s time like he had so much to spare. The costume wasn’t a gimmick. It was a job, as much as hefting crates at the loading dock was. It was a lifestyle.

“What makes you think I want to talk to this Hammerhead shmuck?” Peter asked, his tone biting. The main goon recoiled, shouldering his Tommy gun, once again, as if Peter should revere him. For a bunch of dopes with weapons they didn’t know how to use, they sure were arrogant.

“He wants to talk business. He likes what you’re doing, Spider. You two want the same thing- a cleaner city. All I’m saying is, he wants a chance.” 

HIs first impulse was to say, _ I work alone, _ but it sure would be nice to have someone working with him to help clear out all of the crime. That responsibility couldn’t be handled by Peter alone, he knew that for sure, but also, this guy was giving off some serious mob-boss vibes, and Peter did not like that. But…

“All right, fine, let’s say I do talk to this Hammerhead. How do I know this isn’t some plan to kill me, huh?” Peter crossed his arms, tilting his head accusingly.

“He gives you his word as a man of honor,” the goon said, leering. God, Peter wanted to punch his teeth out. 

A beat passed, and he pondered the offer, wondering if it was for the best. Eventually, the curious side of him won out, and he grudgingly nodded. “Fine,” Peter said, clipped. “Tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.” 

The man’s shit-eating grin grew, and he glanced at his partners, who shot it back at him. “The pier at nine o’clock on the dot.” Ah. That was convenient. The lifting-crates job was on the pier too, meaning Peter would be familiar with the area and know how to get out of there at a moment’s notice. 

“All right,” Peter said, then he jogged out of the store, not waiting for those shmucks to say another word. He shot out a web at a nearby building and sprung into the air, heading back to the pier to return to his work.

Nights were getting colder, Michelle observed, as she walked down a nearly-empty street on the waterfront. Staying out late wasn’t going to be an option soon, even if Michelle wanted to make as many deliveries as possible in a day. Delmar had brought this up with her several times, but she would simply brush him off with a half-hearted reply. Besides the extra money she could get with the deliveries, the distraction of a job took her thoughts away from Peter, whose image kept returning to her mind when she stood idle with nothing to do. The distractions were necessary if she didn’t want to have a small mental breakdown.

It was the challenge of choice that distressed Michelle so much. She could, one, confront him for what he’d done, and find closure without a little bit of heartbreak, or two, stew for the foreseeable future and also feel a little bit of heartbreak. Regardless of what Peter pulled at the club, she still felt like there was a real reason why he left her. Her attraction to him made her doubt the fact that he was a total jerk and consider the fact that there was something he wasn’t telling her. 

Michelle absolutely despised confrontation, so the second option seemed more appealing. She decided that she would indeed stew until either he took the initiative and confronted her himself, or she died.

A particularly strong wind pushed her sideways, causing her to stumble and catch herself against a tree. Winter in New York was hellish, and it was beginning to show its true colors. Michelle swept her surroundings with her eyes, seeing a pier to her left and to her right, a row of tenements that were little more than grids of dark windows. Electricity was scarce in this part of town, she supposed. Scratch that - it was scarce all over town. Michelle herself had to read by candlelight.

Suddenly, Michelle heard voices from her left, making her turn her head to see who was speaking. When she came out from behind a freight container, she saw a man in a suit moving his mouth, but the words escaping his lips were muffled by the wind. He looked odd. It took a moment for Michelle to place it, but the oddity was staring her right in the face. His forehead was almost protruding from his skull, looking like a plate was lodged within it. He looked a bit like Frankenstein’s monster, she thought to herself. 

However, when she moved her eyes to the figure standing in front of her, they widened at the recognition of Spider-Man. And when she looked at the people standing in a semicircle behind Frankenstein’s monster, she noticed that they were all holding Tommy guns. _ Shit. _ Michelle did not need to be here. She picked up her pace, trying to move to the next block as quickly as she could before they noticed her. 

Just before she was about to turn inland, though, something called to her. She couldn’t leave Spider-Man alone to deal with these people. Michelle stopped, literally mid-step, and turned on her heel to walk back towards the meeting.

She crouched down behind a tall crate, peeking over to take account of how close she could get without being noticed. She had to hear what they were saying, and at her current distance Michelle wouldn’t be able to hear jack. Quietly, she scurried out from behind the crate and moved to one that was slightly closer. The words that both were speaking began to take shape in her mind, but they sounded like they were talking over a hurricane with the strong wind. 

Michelle looked up at Spider-Man again and saw his trench coat flowing gracefully behind him, held to his figure only by his crossed arms, making her think of the stories of great Civil War generals that had been shoved down her throat by the white-centric history curriculum at her grade school. He looked pretty badass, she had to admit.

Then she saw that there was one last crate that she could hide behind that would get her barely within listening range of the conversation, but she would take whatever was handed to her, and with one final glance up at the goons with guns, she sneaked behind the crate, sitting down with her back against it.

_ You’re in way over your head, girl, _ Michelle’s subconscious whispered in her ear. _ The hell are you going to do when they point their guns at you? Glare back? _

She ignored the voice and peeked her head over the top of the crate, finally able to hear what they were saying.

“Enough with the niceties, Mr. Hammerhead,” Spider-Man said, his voice rolling over the name like it was some kind of joke. _ So that’s Frankenstein’s monster, _ Michelle thought. _ Hammerhead, huh? He could have done better thinking of a name. _ “What did you want to discuss?” 

Michelle was slowly building a list of observations she had made since the second she noticed the two men talking. One: She did not like the look of this Hammerhead. Two: Tommy guns are not a good sign. Three: This was planned. Four: Spider-Man was in danger. Of course, these observations were made in no particular order. 

“I’m interested in collaborating, Spider.” Hammerhead’s voice was deep, almost gravelly, adding to Michelle’s quickly-growing mental portfolio of him that screamed _ Bad guy._

“Collaborating, huh? We talkin’ the good kind, or the bad kind?” He still sounded skeptical, and Michelle was thankful. She didn’t know what she would think if he was actually going to work with this shmuck.

“That’s up to interpretation,” Hammerhead said slyly, a non-answer. He was grinning evilly, and Michelle hated him. _ Get out of there, Spidey, _ she wanted to yell. _ He means bad news. _ Of course, if she actually went through with it, she would end up with a bullet or two or nine in her cranium. “You and I want the same thing,” he continued. “We’re both tired of seeing the next wannabe Capone running through the streets, doing and taking whatever he pleases.”

Spider-Man nodded, posture still stiff.

“So, what I was thinking was, you and I could work together to stop those idiots. You’ve got the stealth, I’ve got the manpower. Together,” he shrugged, “We’d make a helluva team.” Spider-Man glanced down at his boots, toeing the concrete. He tilted his head, thinking. _ Say no, _ Michelle thought. He couldn’t possibly be considering…

“What if I say no?” Now that was the real question. Usually, people like Hammerhead wouldn’t take no for an answer. She expected him to lash out, order one of his goons to shoot or even attack Spider-Man himself. But he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he smiled again, and somehow this unnerved Michelle more than an attack would have.

“Then we can stay on separate paths.” Michelle sighed in relief. “But.” And she perked up immediately, waiting together with Spider-Man for him to continue. “If you try to get in my way, my men and I will not hesitate to kill you dead. We’ve got an agenda, and if anyone tries to throw a wrench in our plans, we will pull it right back out.” Michelle felt herself shiver, not knowing if it was from the cold or his bone-chilling threat. She looked at Spider-Man, and his lack of reaction soothed her slightly, but who knew if he was bugging out, or pissed himself? His mask would have hidden any change in his demeanor.

“Lemme think on it,” was all he said in response. Then he shot out two webs to a point behind Michelle, and catapulted himself into the air. She and Hammerhead watched him go. 

After a moment of silence, Michelle heard Hammerhead say, presumably to his goons, “I want you to keep a close fuckin’ eye on him, all right? He didn’t seem to like this.” Michelle nodded, knowing he wouldn’t see it, thinking, _ No shit, ya genius. _ Then she remembered that she had to get the hell out of there. Getting out would definitely be harder than getting in was. Before Hammerhead turned around, she crouch-ran back to hide behind the second crate, stopping for a moment to look back, and their attention was on other things, so Michelle took the plunge and skipped the third crate altogether, instead running around the corner of the freight containers.

She saw a black blur fly into an alley across the street out of the corner of her eye. Michelle smiled. _ Spidey. _ She ran across the barren street towards the alley, situated between a bakery and tailor. When she turned the corner to walk into the alley, sure enough, she saw the back of his black trench coat and fedora. He seemed to be collecting himself, slowly turning in a circle as he probably ran through the encounter in his head. When he slowly but surely turned in her direction, he froze. 

“Hello,” Michelle said. He didn’t move. She took a small step forward. “What are you doin’ round these parts?” She asked, smiling knowingly so that he got her meaning. He slowly tilted his head back towards the sky, and smacked his forehead with his palm. _ Rude. _

“You- you _ saw _that?” He asked, slightly incredulous. Michelle took another step towards him. 

“I’m no damsel,” she said in defense of herself. “I’m pretty capable.” He scoffed.

“The Bugle seems to think otherwise,” he said, and was that _ concern _in his voice? The thought made her stop in her tracks for a moment, and she didn’t push it away as she had all of her other thoughts of him in the past. She liked that he was concerned. 

“Whatever,” she deflected. “The point is, don’t do it. Don’t work with him.” Another step towards him. “Don’t be an idiot.” 

He chuckled. “Are you worried about me, darling?” God, she hated it when he did that. She was no dame, nor a floozy. She was a _ woman _ , and she _ would not _allow herself to feel weak at the knees whenever he called her such a stupid name as “darling.” 

At least, that’s what she told herself, but didn’t actually follow, because she almost stumbled in the middle of her next step closer to him and he stuck his hands out suddenly to catch her if she fell. She mumbled something to the tune of _ I’m fine, _and righted herself. “You’re the first good thing to happen to this city in a long while,” she said, acting as if she hadn’t just embarrassed the life out of herself. She felt no obligation to impress him. So why did she care so much about how she acted in front of him? “I don’t want the people to lose that as soon as they finally got it.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “And I was gonna say no anyway. I didn’t like him the second I laid eyes on him,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Michelle laughed, nodding. “Me too, Spidey.” She could almost hear his mask stretch to accommodate his raised eyebrows at the nickname she had just used, but he didn’t comment on it. “I think it was the forehead.” Suddenly, he laughed, really laughed - more than any of the small chuckles he had given at the little jokes she had made - and it sounded like… like P-

_ God, _ stop it, _ Michelle! You have no idea how outrageous you sound. _

Almost as if he noticed her sudden reaction to him, he cut off his laugh quickly, then coughed for good measure. “It was _ definitely _the forehead,” he said. Michelle smiled. Now, she was two steps away from the Spider, and either he was completely oblivious to how close she was or was electing to ignore it, adding to his indifferent aura, but Michelle wasn’t falling for it. She knew there was something benevolent under all of the smoke and mirrors. 

“I heard him say something after you swung away, you know,” Michelle said, and this seemed to catch his interest. He took a small step towards her. God, they were close.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Michelle confirmed. She gazed into the white goggles that he wore over his eyes, the wide circles of white telling her nothing. She hated that she had to rely on his voice and body language to tell what he was thinking, and had a momentary wish to tear the mask off of his face, but she knew that it would be wrong. It would take away from the mystery of this man, which she enjoyed, and also if he wore a mask, there was definitely a reason for it. He wasn’t going around telling people his name. “He said that he wanted his goons to keep an eye on you. He doesn’t seem to trust you after that cold shoulder you gave him.”

“Well, I don’t trust him either,” he said, which was obvious to them both. Michelle was a little surprised she even had a doubt in her mind about his goodness in the first place. “Believe me, if I actually wanted to work with him, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” 

“I believe you,” she said, but he looked down at the floor, not meeting her eyes. Something in his body language had changed. He was rigid, unmoving, contrasting the previous open stance in which he had stood. This confounded Michelle - had she done something? “What’s wrong?” She asked.

He simply looked down at the floor again, and she finally got that he wanted her to follow his gaze. Slowly, her eyes tracked down his chest until they flicked slightly to the right, to his arm- where her hand lay, stroking gently with her thumb. Noticing her blunder, she quickly pulled her hand back, stuffing it in her jacket to hide its shaking. Electricity coursed up and down her arm. What the hell was she thinking? She had lost herself in the moment. That couldn’t happen again. 

“Disregard that,” she said shyly, wrapping her free arm around her chest to grip the one that was _ still _goddamn shaking - why was she so obvious? - and staring daggers into the ground.

“Sure,” Spider-Man agreed, his voice small. “Listen, I gotta go,” he added quickly, taking a step away from her, distancing himself. Michelle needed the space. “Maybe I’ll run into you some other time.”

“Yeah,” she said. “See ya, Spidey.” 

“I like that nickname,” he replied, starting to turn around. “Keep using it.” Then he shot out one of those strings from his wrists again - she had to think of a simpler way to refer to them - and disappeared around the corner. Despite herself, she smiled. He made her do that a lot, she noted. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I realize that this chapter was more filler than the others, but nonetheless I think it's pretty important to the story as it introduces Hammerhead, who becomes more important as the story progresses. I already have finished the fifth chapter and am working on the sixth right now. Leave a comment if you made it to the end :) Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! Until the next!


	5. torn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That’s a good question, sir,” he replied, still not entirely knowing how to answer it. Why did he do what he did? “When I got these… abilities, I realized I could do things that nobody else could.” The others nodded or hummed in agreement. “And if you can do the things that I can, but you don’t…” Peter was surprising himself with how clearly he was expressing his beliefs on why he did what he did. “Then the bad things, they happen because of you.”  
“Shit, kid,” Howard said. “You can’t go around thinking like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like this chapter, guys. I hope you do too. This is the longest one yet, I think - chock full of good stuff. Whump, action, introspection, etc. Leave kudos and a comment with an opinion or observation if you so desire! I live off of feedback, whether good or bad. Without further ado, here's chapter 5! ENJOY!

_ Stupid, _ he thought. _ Stupid, stupid, stupid. _ Why the hell had he been so obvious? He might as well have ripped off the mask right then and there and said, “Hi, Michelle!” He had done so well with hiding his identity and now he was slipping up because she had only touched his arm. 

When he felt her touch him, it reminded him of when they were running away from the racist shmuck and he was high on anger, and Michelle had calmed him down by caressing his arm in that exact same way. The memory had made him freeze up, and then that was when she looked at him strangely, almost as if she could see right through him, and figure out that it was indeed Peter behind the mask. God, he was an idiot. 

If they were going to keep running into each other, he had to improve his acting, drastically. There was no way he could give her any hints as to his identity, not anymore. 

Heh. That would be easier said than done.

Sleeping had become significantly harder since the night he had ditched Michelle. It was probably the urge to do something about their situation that was eating away at him, feasting on him if he was being honest. But no matter whether it was the right thing to do, Peter couldn’t bring himself to take action. 

So when it was three a.m. and he still couldn’t manage sleep, he decided to swing, needing either a distraction or a way to focus on his thoughts, he didn’t know which it was. Thankfully, his spider-clothes were in his room tonight, so he was able to put them on quickly. When he was fully decked out, he pulled open the window in his bedroom and leaned out to breath in real air. He and May lived on the sixth floor of their tenement, meaning ideal height for a leap out of the window to swing. Peter took a deep breath and vaulted himself through the window by the sill, and just like that he was free falling. 

50 feet. 40 feet. 30 feet. _ Thwip. _His eyes stayed fixated on the ground, not even looking where he had shot out his web, but sure enough, he began to feel himself arcing upwards, and at the bottom of his swing he ran on the roofs of a few automobiles before he felt himself begin to rise again, his feet eventually landing on nothing, and carrying him into the air. He shot out another web, which attached itself to a streetlamp. Peter tugged on it to launch himself higher, and heard the telltale creaking of metal. Crap. Sometimes, he forgot he had enhanced strength. As Peter spared a glance towards the streetlamp, he saw that it was now tilted slightly in the direction he had pulled it. He chuckled and refocused.

Swinging was always a good way to get his mind off of things, no matter what it was: trouble with paying rent, unwelcome memories of Ben, guilt over Michelle. Peter shot out webs with both hands this time, getting speed while staying close to the ground, feeling the familiar rush of flirting with danger. 

When he turned a corner, he saw a few people huddled around a burn barrel, sticking their hands out in an attempt to warn themselves. Something inside Peter made him stop and change his trajectory so that he would land near them. He tried to land as casually as possible, smoothly transitioning into a walk when his feet met the ground. Their heads turned to look at him, and he saw their eyes widen, but look otherwise unfazed, as if they saw stuff like that every day.

They were a motley crew of white and black, male and female, tall and short. Nobody said anything, silently making space for him in their circle. Peter took root between a man wearing a brown peacoat and plaid red scarf and another who seemed to be wrapped up in all black. He stuck out his hands like they were doing, his gloved ones in stark contrast with their bare, red hands. 

After a few seconds of silent hand-warming, a man across the barrel from him spoke. “You that Spider-guy they’re talking about nonstop in the papers?” He was a kindly looking black man, his face displaying a casual interest with a smile and slightly squinting eyes.

“That’s me, sir.” The man nodded, pleased, and began to point to everyone that stood with him at the fire.

“My name’s Howard.” He jerked his thumb towards a man standing next to him. “This here’s Stan,” then a woman beyond him, “Dolly,” the man to Peter’s right, “Roy,” the man to his left, “Johnny,” and finally the man on Howard’s other side, “and Marlon.” Wow. That was a lot of names to remember, but Peter wanted to do his best. These people seemed kind.

“Nice to meet you all,” Peter said, waving gently. They either returned the wave or said “hello,” taking a moment to look at him and take in the sight of his mask. 

The man on Howard’s left - Stan - spoke. “You know, they say some real bad stuff about you in those papers.” Peter shrugged, eyes staying on the fire.

“Like what?” 

“They’re calling you a menace, kid.” This caught Peter’s attention. His gaze snapped to Stan’s tired face, scanning it for some kind of mirth, because surely this had to be a joke.

“A menace, huh? That’s news to me.” Who in their right mind would call him a menace? The people he beat up? Because those people always deserved it. They were the real trouble, and people were calling him bad for wiping the floor with the scum of the earth. 

“I don’t believe a word of it,” the woman, Dolly, said. “Far as I think, you’ve only done good.” Peter smiled, glad that there were people on his side. 

“I understand people might have some mixed opinions about me,” Peter admitted. “After all, I go around beating people up in all black. Sounds kinda criminal when I think about it.” This got a laugh out of everyone, and Peter laughed with them, feeling an odd sense of comfort wash over him. He’d just met these people, and they already felt like family. The Spider-Man fan club, slowly growing, starting with Michelle Jones-

Crap, Michelle. Couldn't he go more than an hour without thinking of her? Apparently not. Peter’s face fell, and he stared into the fire again. 

“Hey, Spider-Man,” said the man on his right, Roy, nudging him slightly with his arm. He looked up at him, waiting for him to continue. “What made you want to do what you do?” 

Wow. Nobody had ever really asked him that before, probably because he’d never given anybody the chance to ask, always arriving at the scenes of crimes, stopping them, then swinging off in search of the next one. Well, Michelle could have-

But now Roy was asking him, and he needed to respond. “That’s a good question, sir,” he replied, still not entirely knowing how to answer it. Why did he do what he did? “When I got these… abilities, I realized I could do things that nobody else could.” The others nodded or hummed in agreement. “And if you can do the things that I can, but you don’t…” Peter was surprising himself with how clearly he was expressing his beliefs on why he did what he did. “Then the bad things, they happen because of you.”

“Shit, kid,” Howard said. “You can’t go around thinking like that.”

“Why’s that?” Peter asked, slightly irritated.

“You’re not Him,” he answered simply. “That’s too much responsibility for one man. You’re gonna kill yourself stressing over every little crime that happens here. Don’t go around thinking you’re responsible for the problems that already existed before you started swinging around with a mask.”

Peter wanted to retort, but he took a moment to think about Howard’s words. He was still a kid, no matter if 18 was the age that made you an adult. He was still young, and a bit stupid. Maybe it was a little juvenile of him to think he could save New York City all on his own. Instead of doing the immature thing and saying something in his own defense, he remained silent. Howard smiled, glad he made the right decision. “That doesn’t mean people don’t appreciate what you’re doing, kid. Hell, I’m pretty sure you saved Marlon’s life.” Peter’s eyes snapped to the man on Howard’s right, who was looking down into the fire shyly. His face did look familiar… 

The pieces clicked together in his head a second later. He was the man Peter had saved the night of his and Michelle’s date, the reason he had left her-

The time didn’t matter. What mattered was that everybody was looking at him in awe, and Marlon’s eyes were glistening, and he was speaking. “I was so sure I was gonna die, man.” He sniffled. Howard put his arm around him, and Marlon melted into the man’s warmth. “He was about to shoot me, and then you came in and you saved my life. I’m eternally grateful for that.”

Peter’s heart warmed, and he realized something. There were dozens of Marlons that he had done the same for, and they were little more than faces to him, but to them, he was a hero, a symbol of goodness. A better title than he deserved. He had no idea how to respond to him, but thankfully, that was appropriate. Everyone standing around the fire simply existed in silence, watching Marlon’s display of emotion with great sympathy, and the feeling of family Peter had gotten moments ago was only reinforced by this image of everyone standing together in silent support of the Spider-Man.

After a few more minutes of warming hands and exchanging idle conversations, Peter said he had to get going, but would definitely come back when he got the chance. They all smiled and nodded, saying their farewells, and Peter turned, and then he soared into the air, whooping with joy, doing a little flip off of a wall to give his friends a show, and then returning home. 

Sleep was significantly easier when he returned, and when he dreamed, Michelle made no appearances whatsoever.

She made no cameos in his thoughts the next morning, either, and he greeted May with a smile on his face, grabbing his coat to head into the city for a day of work. Peter was feeling liberated, as if a huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. He may or may not have caught himself skipping when he left his tenement building. 

What was odd, though, was that he saw her face in the crowd. Peter shook his head, thinking he was hallucinating, but when he looked in the same spot, her face was still there, and she was looking straight at him. _ Crap. _ Peter ducked his head, hoping she wouldn’t notice if he slipped off to the side, so he maneuvered to the right, closer to the wall of the tenement they were walking along, but when he looked up again she was standing directly in front of him.

Peter almost stumbled, but he stuck out his hand to the wall, taking advantage of his adhesive abilities to stay stable. When he looked back from his hand to her face, he saw that it was expressionless, but Peter could see the emotions under it: disappointment and impatience.

“Peter,” she said by way of greeting. The syllables were filled with venom, and he felt them sting with full strength. He scratched the back of his neck.

“Michelle,” he said, looking off to the side. He felt small under her gaze - he already felt small due to her height advantage on him, but the coldness in her eyes added to the feeling - and he really wished he was lifting crates right about now. It must be a cold day in hell.

“Nice to see you again.” Her words were biting, like the cold air that was swirling around them, and Peter shivered. She was waiting for him to break under the pressure of her presence. It was working.

“Something tells me you don’t mean that,” he joked weakly. She rolled her eyes, a hint of the warmth she had displayed towards him that night at the club returning, but disappearing almost instantaneously.

“I don’t know if I do,” she said, a little bit of vulnerability flashing in her eyes when he looked into them, her irises that were brown as tree bark, but with flecks of honey. Peter was mesmerized, but snapped out of his daze when she glared at him. 

“Michelle, I’m s-”

“You already apologized, Peter. I don’t want another one. I want an explanation.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and Peter watched as she tapped her fingers against her albeit spindly biceps.

“It’s complicated, Michelle…” _ I’m Spider-Man _ was on the tip of his tongue, but his common sense held him back. He hated keeping it from her, but he was deeply convinced that it was the right thing to do.

“It can’t be that complicated, Pete. Another woman? Couldn’t handle the heat after being seen with a black girl?”

_ What? _“No! Michelle, that’s not- that’s not even close.” Peter was a bit shocked that she was able to casually assume such things. Peter wouldn’t dream of ditching her for those reasons in a million years. Hearing her talk so calmly about her insecurities was unnerving, uncomfortable. 

“Then what _ is _ it?” Her voice rose an octave in frustration, and Peter flinched. _ Just tell her, you complete and utter egg. _

“I-” 

_ No. You can’t. _

“I can’t tell you,” he finished, feeling defeated by his own psyche.

She huffed in indignation and nodded, swallowing heavily. _ Please, don’t… _ “Okay.” She wiped at her left eye. “Goodbye, Peter.” Her voice cracked on his name, and Peter felt sufficiently awful. He watched her walk past him, lightly brushing his shoulder with her own as a final reminder that he screwed up, big.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered one last time when she was little more than a few strides past him.

Michelle continued to wipe at her eyes, refusing to allow herself to cry about him a second time, and it only sort of worked. The familiar heat behind her eyes returned, and it took all she had to not let the tears fall. _ I hate you, Peter Parker, _ she had wanted to say. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it, instead letting the words die on her tongue, because she didn’t mean them. She didn’t hate him, no matter how much she wanted to, because she couldn’t. She couldn’t find it within herself to connect his name with negative adjectives in her brain, even though he had deeply wronged her.

Michelle needed a distraction. She needed someone to talk to. She needed… her mother. There was time before her next delivery that she could use to visit her, so she took advantage of it and found herself pushing the door open and instantly exhaling deeply in relief at the sight of her.

“Hel-_ lo, _ starlet! I didn’t expect to see you back so early!” Her mother, ever the optimist, was smiling brightly at Michelle when she walked in, but she frowned a little when Michelle made a beeline for her bed without warning. “What’s going on?” 

“Momma, I’m having a problem.” That sounded right.

“What kinda problem we talkin’?” Her tone had taken on that familiar motherly control she had heard plenty of times as a child. Michelle sighed before admitting,

“A… Peter problem.” The weight on her shoulders was lifted as she admitted it, but she still felt shy about bringing up his name with her mother, regarding the concern she had displayed when she discovered he was white.

“Mm,” she hummed in understanding. Then she wagged her finger at Michelle like she was a child who had stolen from the cookie jar. “I knew that boy was trouble.”

“Momma, this is serious,” she begged, and instantly her mother understood. Thank God. She couldn’t handle any more jokes. She wanted to be taken seriously.

“Okay, starlet,” she sighed, submitting. “Lay it on me.” 

“He won’t tell me why he left me that night at the club, and it’s killing me,” she said quickly, wanting to get rid of the weight on her shoulders as quickly as possible. “I tried talking to him about it, but…”

“He didn’t say shit, did he?” She assumed, speaking bluntly.

_ “Momma!” _Michelle admonished, shocked since she never swore, unless she was talking animatedly about Michelle’s father, another white man who had wronged a Jones woman. 

“Am I wrong?” Michelle didn’t need to answer, because her mother already knew she was right. “Look, Michelle, if he won’t tell you the truth, he’s not worth your time. Let him go.”

“But I- I still _ like _him, momma.” Her mother looked at her with understanding then, and Michelle gulped. A lump was forming in her throat.

“Of course you do, darling,” she agreed, reaching up to brush a strand of hair out of Michelle’s face. “You can’t just hate him at the drop of a hat.” Michelle almost laughs because that’s literally what she had _ just _been thinking about a few minutes ago. “But you have to make a decision.” God, Michelle hated decisions. She would rather ride the line between them until someone made the decision for her. “Let him go and thank yourself later, or keep waiting for him to explain to you and die before he gets the chance.” 

The truth was, Michelle already knew this. She’d had this debate with herself in her own head. But something about the fact that she was hearing the words from her mother made them sound different. It sounded like a choice she could actually make.

“Thanks, momma.” Michelle didn’t know what else to say, but she knew that her mother understood, because she smiled sweetly at her and squeezed her hand. The gesture made warmth travel up through Michelle’s arm and to her heart. 

“Of course, starlet. I’m always here for y-” Before she was able to finish her sentence, she quickly descended into a coughing fit, covering her mouth with her fist and letting go of Michelle’s hand to beat her chest lightly. The girl watched in horror at this sudden change, face losing a little bit of color as she remembered that her mother’s sickness was bound to get worse, but wished she didn’t.

A sickness that restricted someone to their bed was the type of sickness that would kill quietly. A weakening of the immune system, gradual but definite, until the victim was plagued with too many ailments that their body had no idea what to do with. Michelle didn’t know what they called it, but the name didn’t matter: the fact that she was watching her mother suffer, but couldn’t do anything to help, was what mattered.

Finally, her mother settled, letting out a few smaller coughs, until finally, her breathing was clear, and calm. Michelle quickly asked, “Are you all right, momma?” The woman simply waved her off, pretending as if she hadn’t just hacked up a lung.

“I’m fine, starlet. Just, you know.” Michelle did know. Her mother was dying, slowly. The thought wasn’t a pleasant one, something that kept her up late some nights. That was why she liked to deny it, act as if her mother was simply tired all the time, and that’s why she was always in bed. But that was a childish thing to think. Reality was sometimes too cruel even for adults.

“You sure you’re okay?” Michelle needed certainty, because at a moment’s notice she would ditch whatever she was doing to take care of her mother if something bad happened.

“Yes, darling,” she said, a little irritated. “Now go, you’ve probably got a delivery or something.” Michelle recoiled at her mother’s sudden anger, but she didn’t want to bother her any longer than she needed to. 

“Okay, momma, I’ll see you tonight.” She kissed her mother on the cheek and hopped to her feet, then ran out the door to Delmar’s. There was a lot on her mind, and she needed to do something to get it all out.

Tonight, Peter was wary of Hammerhead. The city had been quiet recently, offering only some muggings and holdups for him to stop, but after seeing Hammerhead and his army of goons, he knew they meant nothing but bad news, and they were probably waiting for the ideal time to strike. As he swung around the city, idling until he felt something with his sixth sense, he kept remembering the evil look in Hammerhead’s eyes when he asked him what would happen if he refused his offer, then the way he spat his threat out with a voice that raked against Peter’s ears and, in truth, instilled a little bit of fear.

Then his thoughts returned to last night, when he stopped by the burn barrel and talked to the circle of homeless. Howard had given him a reality check, and made him look at the whole vigilante business from a different perspective. If instead of the entire city, Peter focused on one neighborhood, he would find himself making a more visible difference than if he stretched himself too thin across the entire borough.

_ You’re not Him. _ Hubris was a fatal flaw, and Peter didn’t like comparing himself to the Greek heroes like Odysseus, but the epics had a degree of truth to them that was hidden under the fantasy of Scylla and the Cyclops. He had to ground himself in reality. Sure, he could do some remarkable things, but he wasn’t invincible. He was still human. 

_ Don’t go around thinking you’re responsible for the problems that already existed before you started swinging around with a mask. _Peter wasn’t going to save the country from the Depression, and he wasn’t going to eradicate crime. There would always be bad people, and there would always be struggle. It wasn’t up to Peter to end it - it wasn’t up to anyone.

_ Bang. _ Peter heard a gunshot, clear as day, from somewhere to his right. Quickly, he altered his direction in midair, pulling himself sideways and twisting when he shot out a web that attached to a wall that displayed a mural. He spared a glance at the wall, and his eyes widened when he saw that it was a painting of his face.

Well, his _ other _face. The mask. It was barely discernible from the wall, but sure enough, the shape of his head was outlined with white and the goggles stared back at him, following him as he swung past the wall. Peter was a bit surprised. He didn’t know that public awareness of him was growing, much less that which would inspire someone to paint his face on a wall. 

Peter felt a swell of pride, and it wasn’t until he looked down at the ground again that he realized he was about to flatten himself on the street. He shot out a web quickly, and tried to position himself so that he landed feet first, but it was awkward and Peter dragged himself across the street for a few dozen feet before he was able to stand again. He shot out another web and jumped into the air, shaking his head at his own stupidity and refocusing, trying to listen for any other sound that would hint as to where the gunshots had come from. 

A few blocks later, Peter came upon a warehouse, which was nondescript: three stories, translucent windows, unlit, otherwise unremarkable besides the fact that this was from where the gunshots were originating. Peter catapulted himself onto the roof to look for an entrance, and found one in the form of a door - pretty straightforward - and when it didn’t open, Peter kicked it so hard that it flew off the hinges as if barely attached in the first place. It made a clanging noise against the opposite wall, and Peter froze, realizing how rash the decision was that he had just made. Someone might have heard. He quickly jumped to the wall, sticking to it, and crawled along it until he was directly above the doorway that led into the warehouse at the bottom of the stairs. 

Sure enough, the door burst open, and Peter saw the top of a man’s head emerge. He wore a white button-down, suspenders, and black work pants. Pretty normal, aside from the fact that he was shouldering a Tommy gun. One of Hammerhead’s goons. Great. The man slowly climbed the stairs, calling out, “Who’s there?” Peter stifled a chuckle. These guys were complete idiots.

When the man was out from under him, Peter kept his hand stuck to the wall as he performed a smooth motion in which he unstuck all of his other limbs and spun around like the hand of a clock until his feet were parallel to the floor. Peter unstuck, landing quietly on the ground behind the goon, who was looking curiously at the detached door, pointing his gun at it as if it was going to attack. _ What a dumbass, _ Peter thought momentarily as he sneaked up behind him. 

“Looking for someone?” He growled, and the man twisted around instantly, the whites of his eyes as big as dinner plates. Peter laughed, and when the man pointed his Tommy gun at him, he grabbed the barrel and bent it sideways, rendering it useless. He gave the idiot a right hook to the jaw and he instantly slumped to the ground, unconscious. Peter looked at his face, a purple bruise blossoming quickly on his cheek. Then he turned on his heel, pulled the door open _ quietly, _ and jumped up to the wall so that he could sneak around unnoticed. 

He looked down at the ground, where he saw a few goons spread out, waving their guns around like toys, and… Hammerhead, in the middle of it all. He was barking out orders, and when Peter focused his hearing, he could make out the words clearly. “Let’s make sure this goes smoothly, boys,” he said. “Don’t want the Spider up in our business, now, do we?” Peter smiled wryly. Too late for that now.

“Yes, sir,” he heard a few of the dummies reply. Peter surveyed his surroundings now that he was on the inside. The bottom floor was a maze of shipping containers, pallets, and crates, similar to Peter’s worksite. The goons seemed to be looking for something, opening crates and shipping containers, sweeping them with their eyes, then moving on to the next one. Others were carrying some crates or pulling them along on pallets, and heaving them into a truck. The other two stories were lofts, also with freight containers and crates spanning the walls, with more goons sweeping through them. Peter himself was up about fifteen feet on the wall above the third story, where he saw three of the dummies walking below him. They seemed to be walking in a straight line, and all looking in different directions. This would be easy.

Peter jumped from the wall to the ceiling soundlessly, landing directly above one of the goons. He maneuvered himself so that he was standing upside down, tilting his head to look straight at the gun-toting idiot. Quickly, he shot out a web and tugged upwards, pulling him up to where Peter was standing, and he didn’t even get the chance to shout before Peter clocked him, knocking him out and attaching the web he had used to pull him up to the ceiling so that he was hanging from it by his tailbone. That fall wouldn’t be fun when the webbing dissolved, Peter thought. He made short work of the other two goons, giving the same treatment to the second and dropping down from the ceiling to simply knock the last one out on the floor. 

Finally having the third story to himself, Peter counted the remaining goons. _ Shit. _ There were too many for him to stay in stealth. He took a moment to formulate a plan of action. He would swoop in quickly, running through the goons and knocking them out, inevitably drawing gunfire from all directions, but Peter hoped that the angle for people on the ground would be too steep for them to get a clear shot on him. 

He took a deep breath before taking the plunge, then shot out a web at a distance that would allow him to smoothly swing into the second level without issue. He unstuck from the wall and at the bottom of the arc, he heard one of the dummies on the ground yell, “There he is!”

Thankfully, it took a moment before the others took notice - idiots - and Peter was able to finally land on the second level. He wasted no time, running to the closest goon and dropping him with a gut punch. An idea formed itself instantaneously in his head.

He shot a web at the fallen goon’s gun, and began to swing it around in a circle around him, effectively driving away the other goons that were starting to approach. They watched in amazement as he heaved the weapon. Peter was barely aware of the sound of gunshots ringing out to his right, but the clang of metal told him they were missing pretty terribly. Finally, Peter let go of the gun, throwing it over his head with a grunt, and he watched it sail towards one of the goons, who simply let it come to him like a dope, and he was knocked back a few feet by the impact, slumping against the safety railing of the second level.

Blood began to flow freely from a gash in his head, but Peter couldn’t focus on that, since there were five other goons he had to take care of. He ran to them, punching and kicking whichever ones he could, knocking them out quickly and efficiently, and using projectiles like crates to take care of the rest. The gunshots continued to go his way, but he felt them whiz past him, his ears ringing, but still staying determined to take care of the goons.

Finally, when the second floor was clear, Peter jumped down to the ground level, thankful for the cover of the shipping containers. He knew he had to stay low if he wanted to avoid the gunshots. Leaning against one of the containers, Peter listened for any noise that would tip him off towards the position of a goon. His sixth sense flared, and the sound of footsteps came from his left. Peter waited for the footsteps to come closer, and when they were right next to him, he grabbed the unlucky idiot, swung him around, and bashed his head against the wall of the container as gently as possible so that he wouldn’t kill him. He knew the others would hear the sound, and approach his position soon, so he quickly turned and scaled the container, laying flush against it so that he wouldn’t give himself away. 

Sure enough, he heard Hammerhead yell, “Find the damn Spider, and kill him!” Finally, Peter started to consider the possibility that he was in over his head. He was directly ignoring Howard’s advice. 

_ Sorry, Howard, but I’m already here. _Peter knew there was no way he could take them all at once. He would essentially become a glorified punching bag and become riddled with bullet holes. No. He had to stay smart about this. He crawled to the edge of the container, peeking over it to see three goons walking single file, sweeping their surroundings with their Tommy guns. Then, Peter looked at what lay ahead of them - a row of barrels. Perfect.

Not wasting a second, Peter shot a web out to one of the barrels, pushed himself off of the container with his free hand, and pulled the barrel towards him, all in one motion. The barrel sailed through the air, but the goons were all in its path. They were knocked down to the floor, unconscious, and finally, it landed in Peter’s awaiting hands. He sensed others coming from behind him, so he twisted and as the gunshots started to come his way, he heaved it over his head, finding a target who had no time to react before it knocked the wind out of him and forced him to the ground. His friends watched as he slumped against one of the containers, then looked at him with fear.

Peter finally had the upper hand. He grinned under the mask, then shot out a web to a shelf that stood next to the unsuspecting goons, pulling it to the side so that it would land on top of them. As expected, they crumpled under it. He chose to ignore the sickening cracks he heard when it landed. He tilted his head, focusing to see if he could sense more goons, but it was too late.

Peter felt a piercing pain in his abdomen, like lightning, fire, poison, and several other things that were extremely painful. He placed his hand on his chest, and when he pulled it away, he saw red; deep red, collecting in his palm. Blood. He had been shot. For some reason, he felt nothing. Instead, he stumbled as he turned around to look at who had shot him. When he turned, he saw Hammerhead grinning, sinister, with several of his goons behind him, one of them holding a smoking gun and looking extremely pleased with himself.

“I told you what would happen if you got in my way, Spider.” Peter coughed, and when he closed his mouth, he felt his lips brush against a liquid - more blood. “Now you’re facing the consequences.” Peter’s hand tightened around his chest, and he felt the flow of blood increase. He knew he could heal fast, after some thugs had gotten a couple lucky hits on him, but this was no fist. It was a bullet. 

“Dunno if you couldn’t tell, Hammerhead, but I’m still breathing.” Peter weakly attempted at a joke, but when he finished, he simply coughed up more blood. Terrible for comedic value.

“Soon you won’t be,” Hammerhead said ominously, then he looked back at his goons. “Come on, boys. Light ‘im up.” Peter had barely a second to leap up into the air before the gunshots came in full force. There were so many of them, and Peter was sure he was going deaf from the way his ears were ringing from the sound. In midair, he shot out a web to some unseen point on his left, and he flew to the side, forcing the goons to follow him with their gunfire. He faintly heard Hammerhead yell, “Come on, you idiots! He’s right there!” Peter was maneuvering as fast as he could, just barely dodging the bullets and feeling them graze his skin, some tearing holes in the trench coat that was flowing behind him. He liked that coat. What a shame. 

He was moving fast towards one of the large windows, and without thinking, Peter shoved both of his legs out from behind him in hopes of breaking it. Sure enough, when his feet made contact with the glass, it shattered, and he felt some shards shred his skin, but all he could focus on was getting the hell out of there. The gunshots followed him for a few more seconds as he finally swung freely down the street, away from the death he almost suffered at the hands of Hammerhead.

Peter had no clue where he was taking himself, but he must have had a subconscious idea, because he was continuing to swing. Every time he extended his arms to shoot out a web, the bullet wound sent another wave of electrifying pain through his body, and he cried out with each swing, but he knew he couldn’t stop.

Eventually, he came to a rooftop he recognized, but with his pain-addled brain, he couldn’t remember for the life of him why. All he knew was, he saw a figure standing on the roof, watching him silently, as if awaiting his arrival. He landed noisily on the roof on all fours, and the figure rushed to him, gripping his shoulder. He cried out in pain - did they really get him in the shoulder, too? The figure took note of his reaction and let go, pulling him to the roof’s edge, where he could lean against the wall. 

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” he heard the figure say. The voice sounded familiar, and for a second Peter was able to focus his quickly blurring vision to recognize her face. Michelle. Why, oh why, of all the rooftops in New York City, did he have to end up on _ hers? _He must be some kind of idiot.

“You’re hurt,” she muttered. Peter laughed, then coughed when he felt the blood rising in his throat again. 

“Thanks for that, Captain Obvious,” he quipped, but she shook her head vehemently, as if he had said the wrong thing. Maybe he had, but Peter was in too much pain to focus on filtering his words.

“Stop talking,” she said, almost like a command. Dutifully, Peter shut his mouth, letting her continue. “I’m going to stitch you up, okay? Stay awake, I’m going to get my kit.”

“Okay, darlin’,” he drawled, feeling woozy. He watched her roll her eyes. God, she was pretty. He had forgotten how beautiful he was after being so focused on stopping Hammerhead. Her eyebrows were furrowed at his semi-conscious statements, and her eyes reflected the moon in their pupils.. Her skin glowed in its light, and it looked smooth, like silk… He wanted to reach out to touch her face, and he must have done so, because he felt her pushing his hand away gently and standing up.

“Stay. Awake,” she repeated. 

The last thing he remembered before passing out was her receding figure, looking back at him as she shoved open the rooftop door to enter the building.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” Michelle repeated like a mantra as she galloped down the stairs in order to retrieve her medical kit. She had planned on having a relaxing night on her roof, simply looking out into the skyline and surrounding herself in the serene quiet of the streets. But then she heard someone coming. And then she realized that someone was Spider-Man. And then she realized, by the way he held his abdomen and landed with a pained grunt on her roof, that he was hurt. Badly. And now here she was, sprinting down to her apartment to help him. 

She shoved the door to her apartment open when she finally reached her floor, and it made a banging noise against the wall. Her mother yelled, “What in the hell is going on?” But Michelle paid her no mind, instead focusing on finding the medkit, rummaging through various piles of stuff and groaning in frustration when she couldn’t find it. “Michelle!” 

Finally, she looked at her mother, who was seething. “What in God’s name are you doing, girl?! You’re gonna wake up the entire building!” 

“Where’s the medkit, momma?” She asked, surprisingly calm, as her thoughts continuously repeated _ Crisis. Crisis. Crisis. _

“Behind the sink,” she said quickly. “What’s going on? Are you hurt?” 

“No, momma! Spider-Man is!” She cried, running to the sink and reaching behind it, her hand finally wrapping around a box that when she looked at it, noticed that it displayed a red cross. “Finally.” 

“Spider-Man? The hell is he doing here?” Michelle didn’t have time to answer her mother’s questions. 

She sprung to her feet, and race-walked to the door, before calling behind her, “I’ll tell you later!” She grabbed the door and pulled it along with her, eventually closing it roughly. She ran back up the stairs, too hopped up on adrenaline to be out of breath, then she pulled open the rooftop door and stumbled out, running as fast as she could back to the fallen vigilante. He didn’t react to her arrival, in fact, he wasn’t moving at all. 

“You fell asleep, you numbnut,” she said, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her. She fumbled with the latch of the kit, laying it out flat in front of her and searching for the sewing kit. She grabbed the needle and thread, but when she finally looked back up at him, something made her stop. Her hands lowered to her lap, and she looked into the eyes of the mask. There was no way he could protest if she sneakily pulled up the mask, finally found out who it was under it, maybe finally confirm her loony-bin theory that Peter was Spider-Man… 

But he wasn’t. And his face didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that he was bleeding out more and more for every second that she left him unattended. Snapping out of her daze, she slapped him across his masked face, and he finally jolted to attention. “Ow,” he said weakly, rubbing the cheek she had hit, then grimacing when he realized he was using the arm that had been shot through. He dropped it to his side, tilting his head upwards toward the heavens in resignation.

“You’re an idiot,” she said sternly, but even she noticed the undertone of affection that she couldn’t get out of her voice, picking up the needle and thread again and rolling up his sweater to find the bullet wound. 

“Gettin’ a little handsy there,” he mumbled, but she shushed him. Finally, when she rolled his sweater up to almost his ribcage, she found the hole. It was huge, and Michelle winced with a phantom pain in her own stomach. She presumed it was the exit wound, which told her two things: the bullet had gone straight through, and that it must have hurt like a bitch. 

She grabbed one of the wipes from the case, and brushed it against the wound. He cried out in pain, and Michelle settled her other hand on his good shoulder, trying to keep him calm. “Stay still, Spidey,” she said, starting to wipe at it again, and she almost gagged at the amount of blood that was pooling on it. “I know it hurts. But you need to stay still.” Finally, he calmed himself down, allowing her to clean the wound more efficiently. She squeezed his shoulder in appreciation, and he hummed at the contact. She decided not to focus on the growing blush on her cheeks and hoped that he wouldn’t be able to notice in his delirium.

Finally, when the wound was decently clean, Michelle tore off some gauze and shoved it into him, grabbing his arm and forcing him to grip it. “Keep pressure on this, I’m going to get to your back now,” she said, surprising herself with the control her voice carried, but not dwelling on it. “Can you take off your coat?” 

She could tell he wanted to make some joke about her making him take off his clothes, but thankfully, he kept his mouth shut, wordlessly shrugging out of the lengthy garment and tossing it to the side. She spared a glance at it and noticed that it was riddled with holes and slashes that she didn’t want to know the cause of. He shuffled forward, allowing Michelle to get between the wall and his back, and pulled up his sweater again before she could tell him to. 

“I can heal pretty fast on my own, you know,” he mumbled as she began to inspect the entry wound, then winced when she prodded at it with a fresh wipe.

“Well, you’ll heal faster if I stitch you up,” she said curtly, tossing the wipe off to the side and grabbing the entire roll of gauze to wrap around his chest when it was clean. She began to circle it around his waist slowly but deliberately, and he giggled like a schoolgirl at the sensation it was causing him. This night was getting weirder and weirder as it progressed.

Finally, when she had circled his waist three times with the gauze, she separated the length she had wrapped around him with the small medical scissors, and stuck a sliver of tape on it to keep it there. “You’re good at this,” he said, and she paused. It should mean nothing, coming from somebody such as Spider-Man, a vigilante, but it was validation, no matter the source. Her cheeks flushed again, and she looked down into her lap, ashamed that she would let such a comment stop her. 

“Maybe because you’ve got nobody to compare it to, you stupid hero,” she said, then before he could reply, she added, “Take off your sweater, I need to get to your shoulder.” He began to protest, but she silenced him, asking, “Do you want me to take care of this or not?” 

He shrugged, then winced when he remembered his shoulder. “I don’t really-” and she punched him lightly in his good arm.

“That was a rhetorical question, dummy,” she said. “Now, let’s go. I don’t have all night.” She actually did, but didn’t feel the need to tell the complete truth to someone who hid the complete truth from her as well by means of a mask. 

He obliged, pulling his sweater up and over his head. As it rose, she took note of his physique. His body looked like it was chiseled by God himself. His abdominal muscles were taut and defined, his pectorals bulging, and his biceps were probably as wide as her thighs. He tossed that to the side, too, not ignoring the way her eyes roamed his chest without even trying to hide it. “Like what you see?” Now all that covered his upper half was the mask, he looked kind of foolish. 

But she had to take care of his shoulder before she could mock him. “Shut up,” she muttered, and she poked him in the chest, at which he winced and whined, “not fair,” like a toddler, but he let her get to his shoulder. She gave it the same treatment of cleaning it and bandaging it, ignoring his knee-jerk reactions to her prods and caresses. 

Finally, when she was satisfied with her handiwork, she said, “Okay, you can put your clothes back on, weirdo,” and stood, running a hand nervously through her hair. She had been extremely calm and collected throughout the entire process of dealing with his wounds, but now reality was catching up to her and she realized that he came to her roof with wounds that would kill a lesser man. 

“Thank you for this,” he said earnestly, and her head snapped in his direction. He was standing now, still lightly gripping his abdomen, his turtleneck sweater covering his remarkably-muscled chest once more. 

“I guess now we’re even, huh?” She asked with a hint of mirth in her voice. He recoiled slightly, obviously not expecting her to say that of all things. 

“Whaddya mean?” He leaned down to pick up his trench coat, grunting in pain when he bent over, using his wounded arm to press on his chest while his good arm reached for the garment.

“I owed ya one for saving my life that one time,” she said, shrugging. He was standing again, shouldering the coat and facing her. She turned to face him, too. “So I got you back tonight.” 

He tilted his head, confused. “That’s not exactly the way I thought of it,” he said. “It’s my job to help people.”

Anger flared up inside of her. “It’s not your job to get yourself killed,” she spat. “You could have died, you- you absolute _ idiot!” _ Michelle noticed him shrinking away from her words, knowing they were a little harsh, but she had been pushed to the edge by this troubling experience. She took a few strides toward him, jabbing her finger in his chest. “You could have died, and then who would there be to stop the next innocent guy from dying in some alley, huh? You have to be more _ careful, _ Spider-Man.”

He said nothing. She needed him to say something, anything, so that she wouldn’t feel like a jerk for yelling at him, but being the goody-two-shoes he was, he remained completely silent, watching her anger overtake her.

“The people need you,” she said, her voice losing some of its venom and lowering to a near whisper. “They need you- _ I _ need you to live, okay?” Finally, she had lost all of her steam, and she took the final step towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck, reminiscent of the night they had met and she had fallen into his embrace, her vulnerable side showing itself in all of its ugly glory. He tensely wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer into him, and she melted into his warmth, his tight hug shielding her from all the bad things in the world. They held each other like that for all of a moment, and suddenly he let go of her, causing her to unravel herself from around him and take a step back.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said. _ What? _She waited for him to elaborate, but no other words came. Instead, he brought his hands up to his neck, and started to pull at something… his mask, and it slowly rose up from his neck, showing more and more skin as he continued to tug it upwards. She almost told him to stop, since a part of her didn’t want the mystery of his face to be ruined, but she also found her throat dry, simply anticipating.

Then, as if he could wait no longer, he pulled it the rest of the way off, and she followed the mask instead of staying focused on his face, like a dope, because she still didn’t want to look at him. But her eyes drifted downward, and she couldn’t stop them before they settled on his face. Chiseled jaw, defined cheekbones, intense, troubled eyes… 

“Peter,” she breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some references to other iterations of Spider-Man: Howard is a reference to the 2018 PS4 game - the guy with the pidgeons - and the "When you can do the things that I can" quote is from CA: Civil War, of course. I hope you guys noticed them, lol. Chapter 6 will be the FINAL CHAPTER, but I have an epilogue planned after that, so stick around! I hope you enjoyed. Leave a comment if you made it to the end :)


	6. together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two settled into an uncomfortable routine, choosing not to think about the other because they didn’t know what to say in the event of a conversation. So they spent several days just thinking, contemplating how they would come to terms with Peter’s mistakes. Michelle was proud of herself, in an odd way, for having the suspicion of his being Spider-Man, and being proven correct. However, she hadn’t felt a complete confidence in her assumption, but she rolled with it in her mind, because pretending that she knew all along made her feel better about her observational skills.
> 
> Peter simply avoided the topic of Michelle in his mind entirely, or at least as best he could. His fear of confrontation with her had only increased exponentially after he escaped at the first thought that it was possible they would have to really face the elephant in the room. Peter wasn’t mentally prepared quite yet, and wasn’t sure if he ever would be. 
> 
> So instead of facing each other like adults, they circled around each other like sharks that were preying on each other, both too scared to pounce, until they couldn’t hold back the urge anymore on one fateful day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, folks. The final chapter. This journey was short, but I think we got a lot done. I really hope you guys enjoy this, but be reminded there’s an epilogue coming soon too! Don’t worry, I won’t make you guys wait long. Leave kudos if you haven’t already, and a comment with an opinion or observation if you so desire! Enjoy chapter six!

“Peter,” she breathed. She didn’t get time to say much else before he backflipped off of the roof’s edge, trench coat following his rotating form as he disappeared behind the wall. Michelle’s words died in her throat, drying up almost instantly like there were cotton balls covering every surface of her mouth. That didn’t stop her mind from screaming several things at once, conflicting trains of thought crashing into each other over and over again, and Michelle felt like her head was going to explode. 

It was at this point when she realized she was hyperventilating and shivering so bad she could have powered a city block if someone hooked a generator to her gyrating body. She raked her hands through her hair, trying to manually slow down her breath, and it worked somewhat, her inhales and exhales becoming less frequent but the shakiness of them more apparent. 

_ Calm, _she thought, trying to make herself embody the word. Her hands extricated themselves from her curls and stilled, and her breathing finally slowed to a normal pace, her heart rate following suit. She tried to take a deep breath, feeling as if she had only just learned how to, and was pleased when she felt the sweet air really reach her lungs, allowing it to sit for a moment before blowing it out.

Sufficiently calm, Michelle was able to allow herself to feel again. She felt a whole melting pot of emotions: anger, surprise, relief, pride (she’d think about that later). Then the physical sensations came rushing back, too - the unrelenting cold, the numbness of her nose and hands after leaving them exposed for so long. She shoved her hands in her pockets and tucked her chin into her chest, hoping to shield herself from the cold at least somewhat. 

She didn’t know why she was still standing on her roof - maybe it was her subconscious desire for him to return and explain everything from start to finish. _ That’s stupid. Go to bed, girl. _

And, yeah, she eventually went back to her apartment, and lay herself down in bed, but the image of Peter looking at her with that broken look in his eyes, mask limp in his hand, mouth sewn shut because he couldn’t bear to say anything else, kept her up for a few hours. 

_ You were right. _

Peter didn’t know how to feel, now that he had finally told her the truth. He had to admit that it was an emotional release, something that had been eating away at him for too long, and it felt amazing to finally be out with it. On the other hand, now that he told her, he had no idea what she thought of the whole thing, since he hadn’t given himself enough time to gauge her reaction, but from what he had seen in the instant before he turned away, it looked like her entire world had been turned upside down. 

The only thing he could focus on when he jumped off of the roof was getting the hell out of there, his first priority, even before checking to make sure he could swing with his injuries. As he turned over in midair so that his back was facing the sky, he thought to himself, _ We’ll see, _and shot a web into the night.

He was instantly reminded that of course it would hurt. His bullet wound wouldn’t be healed by a bandage and a kiss on it. He felt the familiar sensation of pain shooting through his body, but thankfully, it had dulled considerably thanks to his accelerated healing and Michelle’s needlework. He smiled momentarily as he flew through the air, weighed down by nothing, at the thought of her knitting a sweater or a garment of the sort.

Then it fell when he forgot one of his shoulders had been shot through with a bullet when he used the wounded arm to shoot out a web. Peter almost let go of his web, crying out in excruciating pain as he overextended his arm, only able to pull himself along with his other arm that miraculously, almost involuntarily, righted him with another web shot to a building on his other side. _ Stupid, _ he berated himself.

As he had many times before, he found himself on the roof of his tenement, and he stumbled down the stairs, alternatively clutching his shoulder and chest, until he found his way through his apartment and collapsed in his bed, not caring enough to strip out of his suit. If May found him in the outfit tomorrow morning, he didn’t care as long as he got a good night’s sleep.

He was woken up by an ear-splitting scream. He shot out of bed, raising his fists in preparation to throw hands, but when he scanned the room wildly, he found his aunt with her eyes bugging out, hand raised in preparation to slap him silly. “Who the hell are you?!” She yelled, swinging a fist at him, and he was still too shocked to say anything back, barely able to dodge her attack.

Finally, his voicebox began working again, and he yelled, “May! May! It’s me.” She faltered, stopping her hand from raining hellfire down on him and letting it fall to her side. He ripped off the mask, and she frowned, deeply confused. 

“Peter?” Shit. Now there were two people too many who knew who he was, and it was all Peter’s fault. He really had to get better at this. He hung his head, ashamed at his dumb decision from last night. 

“Sorry, May. I should have told you.” 

“God, Peter, you gave me a scare,” she said, barking out a laugh. He smiled warily, unable to sense her emotions, wishing momentarily that he had learned to read people better. “That silly mask made me think you were a burglar or something.” 

Peter’s nervous smile became a frown. Did she not know? “My bad, May.” He decided to steer the conversation in a different direction if she really hadn’t been able to pick up on his hesitation. “I gotta get to work,” he said haltingly, jerking his thumb behind him. May nodded. 

“Then you’d better move, I let you sleep in since you came in so late last night.” Peter was really confused right now. Did she know or not? Was she toying with him? He decided not to ask, since by doing so he would for certain give himself away. 

“Okay, May,” he said, silently praying that she would leave him alone, and she obliged, shooting him a small wink as she closed the door behind her. God, this was far too confusing. But at least he was alone now. Peter quickly tore off his outfit, changing into street clothes as quickly as possible and rushing out the door with one of his shoes still untied. 

* * *

The two settled into an uncomfortable routine, choosing not to think about the other because they didn’t know what to say in the event of a conversation. So they spent several days just thinking, contemplating how they would come to terms with Peter’s mistakes. Michelle was proud of herself, in an odd way, for having the suspicion of his being Spider-Man, and being proven correct. However, she hadn’t felt a complete confidence in her assumption, but she rolled with it in her mind, because pretending that she knew all along made her feel better about her observational skills.

Peter simply avoided the topic of Michelle in his mind entirely, or at least as best he could. His fear of confrontation with her had only increased exponentially after he escaped at the first thought that it was possible they would have to really face the elephant in the room. Peter wasn’t mentally prepared quite yet, and wasn’t sure if he ever would be. 

So instead of facing each other like adults, they circled around each other like sharks that were preying on each other, both too scared to pounce, until they couldn’t hold back the urge anymore on one fateful day.

* * *

Peter’s fear of Hammerhead had started at the size of a nugget in the back of his head. He hadn’t liked the concept of talking to someone who dragged around guns-for-hire to do his dirty work, and meeting him face-to-face only increased his discomfort. He didn’t want to admit it, but Hammerhead’s threat had caused his fear to spread, not quite to the point it was now, but enough to be uncertain about taking a stand against him. He was still thinking about Howard and what he said about stretching himself too thin. Maybe Hammerhead was a threat better handled by law enforcement, or what was left of it in such a crime-ridden time as the Depression - no. They wouldn’t be able to do jack to stop him. Peter had to stretch himself at least a _ little _bit thin if he wanted to get some real change in this city. 

But then, he had willingly pulled himself into the business with Hammerhead at the warehouse, and after getting shot twice and shredded to bits by a window, Peter was deeply afraid of him. Heroes didn’t _ feel _ fear, he told himself. Doubt crept into the forefront of his mind. Would he really be able to stop Hammerhead? Judging from his first encounter with him, he wouldn’t have a fish’s chance on land of even giving him a scratch. 

He couldn’t give up. Not now, when Hammerhead’s intentions were clear - trouble - and Peter had at least been able to make a dent in his operation. So be it. Tonight, Peter would find Hammerhead and put a stop to his crimes for good.

He perched precariously on the steeple of a church, hidden in the darkness of the night. As he looked around at the buildings that surrounded him, Peter chuckled, thinking of all the moving pictures he’d caught in the theater, where the image was always black and white, silent. The world was quiet tonight, and Peter felt as if he was in a moving picture himself - “The Amazing Spider-Man,” it would be called - as he looked out at the monochrome skyline.

He tilted his head to the side, tuning into the sounds of the city. He heard voices, engaged in conversations, white noise. The occasional honking of an automobile - those things were clunky and obtrusive, Peter didn’t know what all the fuss was about - and drivers yelling at each other out of road rage. The city was loud, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to really focus unless he got close to the ground. Sighing, Peter jumped from the point in a spread-eagle pose, allowing the air to catch him, and shot out a web. 

Now that he was swinging, Peter was able to hear more sounds, even the footsteps of the people below him, who yelped in surprise when they saw the black blur that was Spider-Man skimming the roofs of cars and swinging so low to the ground, some even calling his name as he passed. Peter smiled when he heard a little boy yell, “Hi, Spidey!” 

People liked him. It was a welcome change from only being aware of the papers having nothing positive to say. The _ people _ liked him. That was all he needed to know.

A scream rose above all of the other noises Peter was hearing, and he quirked an eyebrow, trying to find the source of the sound. As he continued, he heard more screaming. He turned to his right, seeing a bank that people were running away from, a small fire starting at the door. Peter changed direction instantly, turning the corner at almost ninety degrees, and shooting through the air to reach the doors. He stopped about twenty feet away, and asked a woman who looked like she worked at the bank, telling from her outfit, “The hell’s goin’ on in there?” 

“Men. With guns,” she panted, pointing in the vague direction of the bank, then she stood there, as if those words had taken all of the energy out of her.

He gripped her shoulder, not unkindly, and said, “Tell everyone else to get as far away from here as they can.” She nodded dutifully, and ran off. Peter turned back to the bank. The fire was spreading, and now Peter couldn’t even walk in through the doors anymore. He shot up into the air, stuck a web to a point slightly above a large circular window on the wall, and braced himself for impact. 

The glass shattered into a million pieces, and Peter landed on a catwalk a few stories above the main floor. He quickly surveyed his surroundings. The smell of smoke came first, and Peter coughed. He focused on the ground and found a gaggle of goons, Hammerhead at the forefront, barking out orders. Peter grinned. He had found his target.

He waited slowly for the goons to separate, then shot out a web a short distance away on the ceiling so that he could hang upside down, legs bent outwards for balance. “Boss wanted this done quick,” he heard one of the dummies say. _ Sorry to interrupt, then. _ Some goons were standing on a balcony, up one story from the teller’s booths, probably looking for the vault. Peter was sure it would be harder than that. Every time he wanted to believe they were smarter than they looked, they pulled out all the stops to prove him wrong.

Some of the goons had been lucky enough to have the bright idea to break through to the space behind the glass and look around in there. Now that the numbers were separated, Peter was able to get to work. He wasted no time jumping to the wall and running down it, shooting out a web to stick to a table that he tugged away from the wall to bowl over a pair of thugs that were standing around like dopes. When his feet touched the solid ground after he hopped off of the wall, he breathed in deep, settling his nerves. _ Be smart this time, Pete. _

Another three goons saw their unconscious buddies and yelled, “He’s here!” Peter barely let them finish before he webbed one of their legs and pulled to the left, knocking their feet out from under them and making them fall to the floor. They grunted in pain, but to their credit, tried to get up as quickly as possible, spraying their Tommy guns wildly, thankfully hitting nowhere near Peter. He jumped an incredible distance until he was nearly on top of them, landed on the middle goon’s shoulders, and leapt off, forcing him to stumble backwards. He grabbed the backs of the other two goons’ heads and bashed them together. _ Ouch. _For good measure, Peter shot out webs at the guy he had forced to fall on his ass, sticking his arms to the banister, rendering him immobile. 

“Hammerhead’s gonna kill you this time, Spider,” he spat, grinning. Peter paused for a moment, feeling a pang of fear, before deciding to stick his mouth shut as well. The goon, surprised, tried to yell, but the sounds were muffled behind his web. 

Peter flipped off of the banister down to the bottom floor, where he found broken glass and several goons trying to force open the vault’s door, Hammerhead watching in mild interest and irritation. Peter decided to stay silent, allowing them to eventually place some dynamite on the door, rushing back for cover. Peter simply stood, waiting for impact, and when the sticks blew, he was still standing, though his ears were ringing from the explosion. Wood dust rose from the debris, and Peter was grateful for his mask. He heard the shuffling of feet ahead of him, and Peter knew it was from the goons and Hammerhead, rushing to load up on cash. 

He spared a glance behind him and noticed that the fire was now moving up the walls of the bank, lighting up stacks of paper, making them wilt and darken. Some tables were beginning to ignite. Peter had to move fast. He jogged into the haze, his vision clearing as he moved towards the vault. 

Once inside, Peter could see the remaining goons, thankfully not so many, and Hammerhead, shoveling piles of cash and gold bars into nondescript brown sacks that they carried, and Peter thought of the stories of outlaws in the Wild West. He almost laughed - these clowns were a poor imitation of those men.

Wordlessly, he shot out a web to bring down one of the light fixtures on the ceiling, which landed on the heads of some of the completely unaware thugs, and when he heard the _ clang _ that told him it had made strong contact, he grimaced on their behalf. _ Sounds like brain damage. _

Like it was rehearsed, the men who were still standing turned around at the same time, looking to see what had caused this interruption. Peter only focused on Hammerhead, who took his sweet time to turn and face him. When he looked at his face, he saw a poorly-concealed look of great anger. “You must have a death wish or something, Spider,” he said, without a hint of the sinister joy he had displayed at the warehouse.

“Maybe,” Peter said, and he grinned when he saw Hammerhead scowl in surprise at his agreement. “But if I take care of you tonight, I’ll die satisfied.”

“Ha!” He barked. “Boys, finish the job for sure this ti-” Before Hammerhead could finish his order, Peter crossed his arms over his chest and shot out webs at the goons standing behind him. He pulled the webs back instantly when they attached to the chests of the surprised dopes, uncrossing his arms and causing them to stumble forward. This effectively blocked the lines of fire of the other goons, forcing them to stand without doing anything. 

“You dumbasses can’t do a single fuckin’ thing I ask you to, huh?” Hammerhead said, and he rolled up his sleeves, clenching his fists. He began to charge towards Peter slowly, but before Hammerhead got too close, he jumped gracefully over him, executing a flawless frontflip and landing in a crouched position behind him.

“Catch me if you can, shmuck,” Peter said, shooting out another web to the thugs who were still moving like they were in pools of molasses, latching onto one of their Tommy guns and launching it behind him to where he was sure Hammerhead was. He heard a grunt of pain, so he assumed he had hit the target.

Wasting no time, Peter ran to the goons, finally able to take them on. They finally lifted their guns as if a switch had been flipped on their brain that allowed them to function properly. Peter kicked the unarmed thug squarely in the jaw, causing his neck to turn to the side, and he fell to the ground. 

Peter cartwheeled to the left on one hand, barely dodging the bullets that were starting to come his way. In the middle of the cartwheel, he shot a web into the face of one of the goons, who immediately began to paw at it in hopes of removing it, to no avail. Once his feet were back on the ground, Peter ran up the circular wall towards the final two goons, looking at their friend who had been blinded and muted by Peter’s web.

Without issue, as he ran on the ceiling, Peter was able to bash their heads together with minimal effort, and when he unstuck, flipping as he fell, he saw them crumple to the ground. Peter landed on the floor once more with one foot outstretched, one hand in the air, ready to throw a punch or shoot a web, and the other steadying him on the ground. He was finally alone with Hammerhead.

“Just you and me now, Hammy,” Peter said, the sides of his mouth curling upwards as he said the nickname. The flat-headed man growled in anger. “How does it feel not being able to rely on your dumbasses with typewriters?” Adrenaline was flowing through his veins, fueling him with enough strength to probably lift a subway car full of people. 

“I’m gonna break you in half, you little shit,” Hammerhead spat, his gravelly voice raking against Peter’s eardrums, and Peter felt that familiar fear return. He quickly pushed it away, telling himself, _You can beat him._ _You can beat this guy to a pulp._

Peter took the first steps towards Hammerhead, surprising even himself. He told himself not to make the first attack. The guy looked pretty enraged anyway, so he would probably take the initiative. 

Sure enough, when Peter came within punching distance, Hammerhead threw a wild haymaker, stumbling with the exaggerated twist of his body, and Peter ducked it with ease, throwing a jab at his ribs. The man cried out in pain, clutching his side, and then he roared in anger, running at Peter with fire in his eyes, arms outstretched in preparation to tackle him to the ground. Peter flipped over him a second time, burying his foot into Hammerhead’s back and shoving him into the wall. 

“You wanna sound like an animal so bad, I can drop you off at the zoo after I knock your ass out!” Peter said energetically, bouncing on his feet as he turned around to face Hammerhead. 

“Face me, kid! Fight me like a man!” He beat against his chest, ambling towards Peter in the way a concussed man does, but somehow staying on his feet. Peter shook his head in amazement. Most men would be out cold on the ground after one of Peter’s punches.

“If you say so, pal,” he muttered, raising his fists up in front of his face in preparation to knock him out for real this time. Hammerhead charged towards him again, but now he held a defensive stance, as if he had learned his lesson from charging in guns a-blazing and not considering the possibility of his opponent hitting back. For a second, the two men peeked at each other between their fists, as if daring the other to make the first move. 

Peter caved, throwing a left hook to Hammerhead’s face, but he anticipated this, employing an elbow block and throwing a body shot to Peter’s ribs. He connected, and Peter stumbled, coughing. While he was bent over in pain, Hammerhead hit him with a cross to his face, causing him to fall to the floor, and he wasted no time to kick him in the ribs. Peter coughed again, and he thought to himself, _ Where the hell did that come from? _

But he didn’t want to spend any more time on the floor, so he lifted himself up by his hands, and before Hammerhead could kick him again, Peter grabbed his leg and tugged it towards himself, forcing Hammerhead to stumble into Peter, and he used his other hand to hit Hammerhead with a bit of a cheap shot between the legs. He knew it was a dirty move, but this wasn’t a boxing ring and there were no referees to call him on foul play. 

He saw Hammerhead’s eyes bulge, and he gripped himself between the legs, falling to his knees. Peter hoped this was the end of it, that if he hit him with one more punch, he might fall…

But Hammerhead got up, and Peter had to give him credit. “You don’t give up, huh?”

The man spat at him in response, his fists shaking. He was almost down - Peter could feel it. He took a step towards Hammerhead, throwing a hook, but he grabbed his arm and with the other hand, threw an uppercut to the underside of it, and Peter cried out in pain. He stumbled back, clutching his arm and shaking it out. Hammerhead risked a kick to Peter’s side, and he took full advantage, holding his leg against his side and using one of his own to sweep the other out from under him, and Hammerhead fell to the ground. Peter followed, landing on top of him and throwing a pair of crosses into the thug’s face. His head lolled to the side, eyes closed, and finally, he was unconscious. 

Peter let out a sigh of relief, squeezing the arm that Hammerhead had possibly fractured, and rising to his feet, standing above the man he had finally beaten. “Gotta say, shmuck, you put up a good fight,” he said, saluting, knowing he couldn’t hear him in his unconscious state. 

Not sparing another moment, Peter began to run out of the vault, and when he emerged, he saw that the fire had now completely enveloped the bank, every available surface aflame. Peter immediately began to sweat under his turtleneck and leather mask, and when he found the window through which he had entered, he shot two webs from each hand to a spot right under it. He braced himself against them, building up enough resistance until he was straining to hold his position, and he finally relented, allowing himself to fly through the air, through the window, and onto the wall of a building across the street. He took a moment to get accustomed to the quick temperature change of the cold winter night, and then turned to look back at the burning building. It was an inferno. 

Hammerhead was still in there…

Why did he give a shit? Peter almost began to swing away, but then he groaned, knowing he couldn’t leave him to die like that, trapped by the high flames. Reluctantly, he swung back through the window, coughing when he landed on the floor again due to the smoke that was fogging up the room. He ran through the door of the vault again, and lifted the unconscious man over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He knew he couldn’t swing out like this - he would have to use the door.

Steeling himself with a deep breath, Peter began to run through the flames, the floor feeling like hot coals underneath his feet. “Hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot,” he repeated as he took each step. Finally, while running, Peter jumped into the air, Hammerhead still slumped over his shoulder, and kicked the doors open. He landed on the steps of the bank, looking out at the street, and seeing that there was a wide semicircle of people surrounding him, looking at him in awe. Peter felt as if he were being inspected under a microscope. Awkwardly, he waved with his free hand, and began to descend the stairs. Their eyes followed him, and finally, when he reached the street, he shrugged Hammerhead off of his shoulder and lay him flat on the ground. 

“This guy is a criminal,” he shouted. Everybody seemed to be shocked by the fact that he could speak, taking a step back in shock. “Can someone take care of him?” It took a moment for the people to react, but he saw a few reluctant nods, and Peter saluted. “Thanks.” Then he jumped into the air, hearing a few “oohs” as he flew, then shot out a web to swing away into the night. 

* * *

Michelle watched Peter swing away, getting smaller and smaller as he swung between the buildings, with a look of surprise on her face. She had been in the crowd when he kicked the doors open and came out of the burning bank looking like a true hero, with the guy he had been trying to stop over his shoulder. Why the hell would he risk his life for a shmuck like Hammerhead? She supposed that it would be a mystery forever. Either that, or she could conclude that he was simply too good-hearted to leave a man to die when he had the chance to save him.

She couldn’t keep herself from him any longer. They had to talk. She had always known this, but hadn’t wanted to act on it because, as said before, she despised confrontation. But she definitely had a list of things she wanted to say to him, so many questions that she would make him answer, when she finally got the chance to confront him. 

She would find him tomorrow and give him a piece of her mind.

* * *

When he got home, Peter’s mind was finally off of Hammerhead after swinging silently for a decent amount of time. Now, for some reason, all he could think about was Michelle. There was a conversation, an inevitable one, a necessary one, that he would have to have with her. As much as he wanted to avoid it for as long as he could, he knew that the faster he got it over with, the less it would hurt when she told him she would never speak to him again. He would have to find her - tomorrow, he decided - and let her give him a piece of her mind, since he hadn’t given him a chance to the last time they had met.

In the meantime, he would smoke a cigarette, since he could certainly use the calming effects of nicotine. Lung cancer be damned.

* * *

Michelle woke up with a feeling of determination. She was ready. She got dressed with a steely look on her face, really trying to get herself in a dominant, strong mindset, told her mother goodbye, and marched down the stairs to the street.

_ Hey, Peter. What the hell is your problem? _ That was too aggressive. _ Here’s how it’s gonna go, Peter. _ Too commanding. _ Look who it is. _ Mocking. _ Peter, let’s talk. _Okay, that was better. Michelle walked the streets, barely paying attention to the numbers and autos honking at her as she crossed the streets, since her destination was imprinted on her mind. Before she knew it, she stood before a familiar door, a familiar wall, and she simply stared it down as if it were Peter himself. After a few minutes of nobody coming out, she resigned herself to leaning against the wall next to the door, ready to intercept him whenever he exited.

Michelle took this time to collect herself, which took a while. She was slowly building a script in her head of what she would say, complete with guilt tripping, anger, and small displays of vulnerability. She was even beginning to mumble the words under her breath, practicing.

Then she heard the door creak open, and when she looked to her left, she saw Peter, pushing it back so that it would close. He was still oblivious to her presence for one sweet, final moment, then he froze, allowing the door to shut on its own, and looked up at Michelle’s face. His mouth fell agape slightly, and so did hers. All of the lines she had prepared for this encounter disintegrated from her mind, and they were left to stare at each other, too stunned to speak. 

“Peter,” she said finally, voice shaking with nerves. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.” She wrung her hands, standing straight from her leaning position, and he watched her with a nervous frown on his face.

“Me, too.” He replied simply, and she shook the nerves out of her system, glancing down at the space between them, and she began to speak.

“You hurt me, Peter,” she said quietly. His gaze fell to the pavement.

“I kn-” he began, but Michelle cut him off.

“No, Pete,” she said, a little forceful, not trying to yell but wanting to get the message across to him. “I want you to listen.” He looked back up at her and nodded, remaining silent, urging her to speak. She took a deep breath, then started speaking again.

“You really messed with my head. When you left me on the dance floor, I couldn’t help but think that… you did it for the same reasons every other guy always does - I’m black, I’m too rigid, I’m… a bad person.” She watched his jaw drop slightly, but she pushed onward.

“And when you couldn’t even tell me why, it hurt even more. I haven’t met a guy like you before in my life. You were so good to me, until you weren’t. Every day I went without seeing _ you - _ not Spider-Man, _ you - _ it just got harder and harder. I wanted you to tell me the truth, and I tried to hate you, I really did. But I couldn’t no matter how hard I tried, because I always had the feeling that… you didn’t want to leave me out in the cold like that. And now that I know why you did it, it’s better, but it doesn’t change the fact that you waited so long to tell me, or that it hurts.”

She paused, not sure how to say the next thing that was on the tip of her tongue. Peter watched her fumble her words for a few seconds, but respectfully still said nothing. He rubbed the back of his neck. She almost smiled at the gesture. It was way too endearing, in an odd way.

“And you know the craziest thing?” She finally asked, not wanting him to respond, and the only way he did so was by frowning. “The craziest thing is… I still…” She faltered. 

“You still what?” He prompted, his voice hoarse, sounding as if he had just woken up. She looked up at him, and his face seemed to be fighting with itself on whether it wanted to look sad or hopeful. 

“I still… like you. And I know that makes me sound like some stupid schoolgirl, but I don’t know how else to say it and, oh God, I sound like an idiot now-” She was stopped by Peter’s hand on her shoulder, and when she looked at his face now, it looked… pleased. What a shmuck.

“Michelle,” he said, her name rolling off his tongue like something in French. He made her name sound so much more beautiful than it actually was. Her cheeks flushed. “Michelle,” he said again. His smile was gone, replaced by an earnest look. “I don’t deserve that. I don’t. It’s just like you said. I lied to you, I avoided you, I did bad things to you.” He was looking at her with that familiar smoldering gaze, the one that made her feel some unholy things. “I am so s-”

This time, she cut him off by planting her lips on his, softly, but enough pressure to effectively shut him up. He made a hum of surprise against her mouth, and when she placed her hands on his cheeks to tilt his head up so that he could lean into her kiss, she felt his hands fall to her waist. He began to kiss back, which made her smile against his lips. She kissed him for a moment more, then she leaned back, looking down at him, her smile staying plastered on her face, and she noted that his cheeks were red as tomatoes. “I told you to stop apologizing, Casanova,” she said, biting her lip to contain a laugh that was sure to come out.

He smiled sheepishly at her use of the nickname. “Sorry,” he said, then she smacked him lightly on his arm. 

“What did I say?” She asked, but there was no venom in her words, only affection. She could tell he was struggling not to say it again by the way his mouth kept opening and closing. Thankfully, he stopped, having to close his mouth completely by using his hand. 

“No more lies,” she ordered calmly, and he nodded in response.

“No more lies,” he repeated. For good measure, she kissed him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh, I can’t believe this is the end of the main story. I’m usually not great with multi-chapter fics, but I must have felt something real strong about this one. I hope you guys enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing. Leave a comment if you made it to the end :) EPILOGUE COMING SOON.


	7. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, y'all. The final part of this story. I never could have imagined all of the positive attention and feedback I got as I wrote this story - it was really inspiring and helped me complete it when this would be an otherwise daunting task. It's actually more than twice as long as the last multichapter fic I've written (although this was two chapters longer) so I have to thank EVERYONE who supported me through this albeit short journey: Diegosan27, Maddybebe2, barisile, VforVibrant_2019, devulent (Thanks for commenting more than once, lol!), suckerforyou (you too), and all of the wonderful guests who commented as well! Thank you all for your continued support of this story. I couldn't have done it without you guys - I actually smiled when I read some of your comments. Anyway, I bet you guys are getting bored reading all of these acknowledgments or whatever. Leave kudos if you haven't already and a comment with an opinion or observation if you so desire! Without further ado, here's the epilogue! Enjoy!

Despite the adversity Peter and Michelle faced for being together, their relationship flourished. They went to moving pictures (more like sneaked into them), picnicked in the parks, had lunch, but their favorite shared activity was simply to walk around the city, talking or not. They would hold hands, ignoring the looks shot their way and the remarks they would hear whispered under people’s breaths, and smile as they bickered affectionately over whatever mindless topic they had found themselves busy with. 

Eventually, after hearing so much about Peter, her mother wanted to be introduced properly - at dinner. Michelle was scared about how that would work, due to her sickness and all that, but when she had brought it up shyly as they sat under the trees in the park, Peter said yes before she could even finish her sentence. When he knocked on her door on the planned night, without hesitation he walked up to her mother and gave her a hug, saying “Nice to see you again.” Michelle had gotten slightly choked up at the sight, but held back her emotions because for Christ’s sake, she didn’t want her food salted by tears. As they sat next to each other on the side of her mother’s bed, eating steak and eggs, they laughed and shared stories, and Michelle couldn’t help but smile wide for the rest of the night.

It was Peter’s idea to introduce her to May, without any prodding from her, actually. One night he had said to her, “I want you to meet Michelle,” and she had smiled and agreed. 

He could tell the idea scared Michelle by the widening of her eyes when he mentioned it, but her expression quickly softened and she kissed him on the cheek, saying “I would love to.” 

He watched as May enveloped her in a hug the second she walked through the door, and said, “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Peter wouldn’t shut his trap about you, you know,” at which he blushed and resisted the urge to say anything in protest because the way Michelle looked over his aunt’s shoulder at him was enough to make him shut up.

Michelle showed up at his door again one morning with tears in her eyes, and she fell into his arms wordlessly. He held her for a few minutes, and she didn’t say anything until she couldn’t hold it in anymore: “My mother... She’s gone,” she said quietly into his shoulder. He didn’t say he was sorry because he knew that wasn’t what she wanted to hear, and he didn’t say it was going to be okay because that was a lie. Instead, they stood in each other’s arms for a few more minutes, tired in the six a.m. silence.

They stood with Betty, Ned, and May as the sole attendees of the funeral, but that was enough for Michelle because those were the only people she could think of that deserved to be there, because she could tell they cared. She noticed the looks that came her way from everyone, that she knew meant they were wondering if she was okay, but this wasn’t about Michelle. This was about her mother. When the priest finished his speech, Michelle stood in front of the other four, and talked, voice shaking, about her mother - anything that came to mind. She could see all four crying with her by the end, and at that moment she thought she would never want anyone else there to celebrate her mother’s life with her.

Of course, Peter was the one to say “I love you” first. They were in Peter’s bedroom, her head on his chest as she lay with her arm around his waist, and his own arm resting on her back. They were fully clothed, thank you very much, just shoeless. When he said it, he could feel her freeze, and he backpedaled, but she placed her hand over his mouth and he stopped, confused. 

She told him, “It’s okay to love me, Peter,” and then she lifted her head to meet his eye. “It just might take me a while to say it back.” He nodded, understanding, placing a peck on her lips, at which she smiled. 

“That’s fine,” he reassured, and she nodded, resting her head on his chest once again. He didn’t dare say it again for a long time.

Six months passed, and while Michelle hated celebrating small milestones such as six months together, when she saw the look on Peter’s face as he said “Happy six months,” she reconsidered her entire outlook on such things. He had presented her nervously with a necklace, the chain understated, golden and thin, sporting a black crystal carved into the shape of a flower. She had gasped when he pulled it hesitantly out of his pocket and displayed it in his open palm, pulling his hand up so that she could see it better. 

“It’s beautiful,” she gushed, and he smiled brilliantly, evidently ecstatic that she had enjoyed his gift. She allowed him to drape it over her neck and close the clasp, tracing his hands over her collarbone and jaw, causing goosebumps to form on her arms and back. 

One night, as he was walking her home, and they found themselves at her door, Peter watched her turn away from him, then stop, then turn back to him, then begin to speak, then fumble over her words, a deep red shade developing on her face. He watched her with a confused smile, wondering what she was trying to say, but it was the last thing he ever expected her to utter in that moment. “I think I love you, Peter,” she finally got out, saying it quickly as if the words burned her tongue. He was in shock, barely processing her words as quickly as she said them, and he simply blinked, mouth slightly agape. “You not gonna say something, or…?” She trailed off, and then Peter’s brain started working again, and he took her face in his hands, eyes twinkling as he looked at her. She looked uncertain, putting her hands on his wrists, but not pulling them away from her face. 

“I love you too, Michelle.” Then she smiled, her fears dissipating in his comforting presence, and kissed him. 

“I love you,” she said again, whispering, when she pulled away and their faces were inches away from each other. They finally said their goodbyes and walked away, full of joy, and love.

Some months later, as the two sat at Michelle’s dining table, a bottle of wine between them, a little giggly and loose-tongued after several glasses, Peter mumbled, as if it were some little nothing, “Happy one year.” Her eyes widened, and he looked into them, a bit nervous. 

“One year?” She asked, shocked. He nodded, scratching the back of his neck, and she smiled. Then she stood from her seat and he watched her as she took a seat in his lap. His vocal cords stopped working, not being used to her straddling him like this, then she leaned down and whispered in his ear, “Time flies, huh?” Then she kissed him, a usual, normal activity that they both took part in, but this was different. This meant something new, something neither had really done before, but they knew what they wanted. It was awkward at first, but soon the bed was rocking and both were moaning the other’s name with pleasure, huskily from one and high-pitched, breathlessly from the other. 

The lights stayed on for a long time that night.

He introduced her to Howard and co. one night on a whim, suited up and swinging. The trip there was filled with screams and mumbled prayers, but eventually, their feet kissed ground once again, and Michelle’s knees buckled when they landed. He held her tightly, making sure she didn’t fall, then turned to the group of homeless people that looked on in confusion. 

“You brought a friend!” Howard called happily, causing Michelle to snap her head in her direction, and she frowned. 

“Who are these people, Spidey?” She asked, catching herself before she said “Peter.” Hiding his identity was hard, now that she was in on the secret, but she was getting more used to it. 

“Just some friends,” he said, letting go of her to walk to Howard and the others and shake hands. He then walked back to her, placing his arm around Michelle’s waist, causing her to blush.

“This is Michelle, fellas,” he said, gesturing to her with a flat hand. She waved shyly, looking down at the ground. She felt nervous, since she had never really met any of Peter’s friends, or known if he had friends at all.

Of course he had friends, she reminded herself. He and Ned, Betty’s now-fiance, got along real well. “Nice to meet y’all,” she said. Then, not one to back down, she proceeded to make good friends with all of the members of the “barrel bunch,” as she began to call them. They took the name in stride, laughing happily when she said it the first time. 

Peter was simply reminded of how much he loved this woman as he watched her smile and joke with the group, lighting up the room. When it was time to go, they all ribbed him, reminding him to bring her next time, too, since they were “getting bored with his gloomy ass.” He knew they didn’t mean it, because their faces were smiling, and so he laughed.

She was proud of herself for subverting gender roles when she asked him to move in with her. He choked on his food when he heard it, and she had to roughly smack him on the back to help him clear his airways. She felt slightly humiliated, because his reaction must have meant that he didn’t want it, right? 

Apparently not. “Are you sure?” Was what he said when he was finally able to breathe again. “I mean, because of your mother and stuff…” Oh. She hadn’t even thought of that. Leave it to Peter to do the thinking. 

“We can… share a bed,” she said haltingly, and he must have noticed the vulnerability in her eyes because he took her hand in his.

“I’m sorry I brought that up,” he said earnestly. “I would love to move in with you, Michelle, if that’s all right.” She snorted, rather unattractively, which made him recoil, a bit offended. “What?” 

“I’m the one who asked you, dummy,” she said, but then she kissed him to prove that she didn’t mean nothing by it.

He smiled against her lips and mumbled, “Shut up.”

Years passed. Their passion and love for each other remained, even grew. They never even considered moving out of the one-room apartment they had shared for so long, not until one morning when Michelle woke up alone in bed, since Peter was making breakfast, and ran her hand over her naked stomach while half-asleep. Something felt… different. “Pete?” She called out, worry beginning to creep in.

“Yeah?” he responded over the sizzling of bacon, turning back to look at her. “What’s up?” She ripped the comforter off of her then, looking at her belly. It was slightly… pronounced. 

“Peter?!” Her eyes widened, and she couldn’t say anything else, because her brain was firing on all cylinders and yet it kept dancing around the logical conclusion. She couldn’t be…

Peter rushed over, taking a knee next to her lying form, and asked, “What’s going on, Em? What’s wrong?” Then he looked down at her hand, the one that was still lying limp on her stomach, and he lifted it up, running his hand over her belly himself, then his eyes widened too. “Are you…” 

She nodded, her eyes glistening. “I think so,” she whispered, barely audible. She could see small droplets - tears - threatening to spill from his eyes, and she wanted to wipe them away, but her hands weighed a thousand pounds and she couldn’t move.

“Are you okay with it?” He asked, moving to grab one of her hands, and rubbing the back of it with the pad of his thumb. Was she? She thought about this for a moment, then came to the realization that she wouldn’t even dream of having such a thing with anyone else. She loved Peter like nobody else in the world.

“Yeah,” she said, voice breaking. His eyes lit up and the first tear streamed down his cheek, but he was elated.

“Michelle!” He exclaimed, sounding as happy as a puppy. Then he hugged her. Neither cared that the angle was awkward, and Michelle didn’t care about the awkward sensation of his clothes pressing against her naked body.

“I love you,” they both whispered, nearly at the same time, chuckling when their voices overlapped. They were happy, and nothing could pierce the little bubble they existed in at that moment. Nothing.

Their daughter, Loretta, named for Michelle’s mother, grew faster than either of them could handle. Peter began to don the suit less and less, knowing he had to be there for his child and constantly being reminded of it by Michelle. They raised her as best they could, in a new apartment, with two bedrooms, and a proper kitchen and bathroom. 

Loretta was an infant, then a toddler, then a preteen. Peter would constantly lift her into the air, spinning her around in circles, and she would laugh gleefully. “You’re so big!” he would say as they spun. Then he would say, “Too big,” and fake a frown. “We’re gonna shrink you down a bit,” and Loretta would scream shrilly, not out of fear, but of anticipation, for she knew he was about to bonk her on the head, as gently as he could muster, and then when she bent her knees to shorten herself a few inches in an exaggerated fashion, he’d say, “Much better.” Of course, throughout this entire ordeal, Michelle would watch with a loving smile on her face as she watched the two people she loved more than anything share a happy moment. Then Peter would look up at her, then back at Loretta, point at Michelle and say, “You know, you look _ just _like your mother.” 

Then she would fake groan and say, “You’ve said that a bajillion times, Daddy,” running into Michelle’s arms, who would bend down to hug her so tight that she would wheeze, “Can’t breathe.” 

Peter would follow Loretta and bend down next to them, enveloping them both in his arms, and whisper, “I love you two so much.” 

Then she grew some more. Some days, she would come home from school with tears in her eyes and say, “The kids called me names,” and Michelle would hold her as she cried, knowing exactly what Loretta was going through, for she went through the exact same things at her daughter’s age. Whenever this happened, Peter would bristle and give the same speech about giving the principal a piece of his mind, and Michelle would have to make him calm down with a kiss or a hand cupping his jaw. He would melt into her touch and forget instantly what he was mad about. 

Then Loretta was graduating secondary, and at her commencement ceremony, Peter and Michelle cheered when her name was called, and she complained about this later, about how much they had embarrassed her, but they enveloped her in a hug and said, “We just love you so much.” 

The year was 1983. Peter and Michelle were watching the television, a bowl of popcorn between them. They had been watching for a few hours and were beginning to feel tired. When the news came on and their eyes were beginning to glaze over from boredom and exhaustion, Peter sluggishly grabbed the remote and turned off the TV.

They were getting old, something they took in stride. Time had done nothing to change the way they felt about each other. They had been together for fifty years now and they still loved each other like they had when they were twenty-four years old. 

“Can you believe that we’ve been together since exactly fifty years ago today, Em?” Peter asked, his eyes still holding that youthful twinkle. She turned to him on the couch and sighed. She pecked him on the lips, then ran her hand over his arm, idly drawing lines into it with her fingers.

“Time flies, huh?” She asked, grinning, remembering that night forty-nine years ago when she had said the same thing. He grinned back. Michelle stood, walking over to the radio. When she flicked it on, tuning it to their favorite “oldies” station, as Loretta liked to call them, she froze. A familiar song was playing - the one she and Peter had danced to on their first date.

“I’m in the mood for love…” Michelle closed her eyes, feeling a rush of emotion, and she clutched the table on which the radio stood. She felt hands wrap around her waist from behind, and she turned around while still ensnared in them, looking at Peter. She was starting to shrink, and Peter usually wasted no opportunities to tease her about it, but now he said nothing. She put her arms around his neck, and he placed his hands on her hips. Slowly, they began to sway, and they smiled at each other lovingly. Peter must have recognized the song, too, because she could see his eyes closed, his lips moving to mouth the words. He was still a total looker after all these years. 

He sensed her thoughts, opening his eyes to smile at her, his teeth still the same pearly white they had always been. Michelle was dazzled, to say the least. He leaned in to kiss her, and she met him halfway. They continued to sway, and she felt comfortable while doing so with her eyes closed because she knew Peter wouldn’t let her get hurt. It was the little things like that which reminded her of how much she loved him. Peter was the first to pull away, and she opened her eyes to see his still-smiling face.

“You’re still a loser,” she whispered affectionately.

The little shmuck’s smile grew. She hated how her words had lost their bite for him, but she supposed he knew that was how she expressed her love. He definitely would, after fifty years.

“Only for you, darling.” She bit her lip as she grinned back, wanting to berate him for being so sappy, but really, she didn’t mind. Instead, she allowed the music to waft back into her ears, and she gazed into Peter’s eyes, who looked back at her, and a million words were said with just the meeting of their gazes, which all boiled down to one simple message:

_ I love you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow guys, so it's officially over. Once again, thanks so much for reading my fic and sticking with it. Comment if you made it to the end, especially with some new fic ideas that you might like to see me write in the future! I'm always looking for fun stuff to write, so some suggestions would be great! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Until the next fic!

**Author's Note:**

> 1930’s Slang Guide:  
Shmuck - jerk/guy  
Joe - average guy / nobody  
Off the cob - corny :)
> 
> Well, I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a comment and kudos if you made it to the end :) The plot will definitely thicken in later chapters, so stick around! Thanks for reading!


End file.
